Linda Ronstadt

“Sometimes I was frivolous. Did you have some frivolous years? I had to live mine out in public.”

“I listen mostly to live music, and mostly my musical experience was playing music with other people.”

“The smell of the carpet in a hotel room is the same everywhere.”

“I love everything soft, cashmere and down. I don't like anything scratchy.”

“I am a believer in discipline; it takes a lot to do well. You need discipline for those little excursions into the chaotic that make life interesting.”

“Ninety-eight percent of the singing I did was private singing - it was in the shower, at the dishwasher, driving my car, singing with the radio, whatever. I can't do any of that now. I wish I could. I don't miss performing, particularly, but I miss singing.”

“I always thought competition was for horse races and it never belonged in art. I never felt that competitive with other girl singers, really.”

“To sing with Frank Sinatra in any capacity at all is overwhelming.”

“I grew up in a big sky country. Then I lived in Manhattan, where you can only see the sky between buildings, and then I went into a building where you couldn't see the sky at all. I didn't like that so much.”

“I wanted to sing when I was little. That's what I liked doing. It didn't occur to me that you became famous or anything like that.”

“I got a couple of different contacts from publishing companies saying they'd be interested in a book about my work: not a kiss-and-tell book, which I specifically put in the contract. Just a book about my work and what I did.”

“I know my own father's business was very dependent on the goodwill and business and trade from people in northern Mexico. We knew their families and went to their weddings and baptisms and balls and picnics, and we had a great time with them.”

“The thing I like about singing duets is that I get things out of my voice I never get singing by myself.”

“For years, I've been interviewed, and they write what they thought I thought or what they thought I said. Sometimes it's accurate, and often it isn't.”

“Ninety-nine percent of singing is listening and hearing, and so then 1 percent of it is singing.”

“I had a galvanised voice: I could sing through a 105 fever or a flu or a root canal or anything that you could throw at me.”

“I didn't know why I couldn't sing - all I knew was that it was muscular or mechanical. Then, when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I was finally given the reason. I now understand that no one can sing with Parkinson's disease. No matter how hard you try. And in my case, I can't sing a note.”

“Singing with Aaron Neville, he pulled stuff out of my voice I never could have gotten, because if he's providing XYZ, I have to put in ABC, and usually I don't have to put in ABC.”

“You don't want people who have never had to deal with adversity - you want people who have been able to deal successfully with adversity. That's what adds to society. Those are going to be the hardest-working, best people.”

“The only reason to be with somebody is that they make you a better person and you make them a better person.”