244 quotes found
"When I was young I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then and I'm labeled senile."
"I've had worried parents come up to me and ask me for advice. They'll say "I don't know what to do. My teenage son won't cut his hair, he drives too fast, and I don't know what that stuff is he listens to, but it sure isn't music." I'll just say to them "I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. By the time he's my age, I don't think you'll need to worry about him anymore.""
"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair."
"If I paid $3 or $4 for a cigar, first I'd sleep with it."
"At my age, all my friends, doctors, and attorneys are dead. The good thing about this is that there's no one left who can refute my stories."
"Happiness is having a loving, close knit family in another city."
"I never actually said "Ooh, you dirty rat.""
"You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them... I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can."
"He can do nothing which is not worth watching. On his light hoofer's feet, with his quick nervous hands and his magnificent unconsciousness of the camera, he can pluck distinction from the least promising part."
"He can't even put a telephone receiver back on the hook without giving the action some special spark of life."
"Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee, A dinka doo. Oh, what a tune for crooning. Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee A dinka doo. It's got the whole world spooning."
"Don't put no constrictions on da people. Leave 'em ta hell alone."
"That's the conditions that prevail!"
"I'm mortified!"
"Surrounded by assassins!"
"Everybody wants ta get inta da act!"
"I don't know where it's going, but I'm sticking with it!"
"I was hurt so deep that I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what. I never made jokes about anybody's big ears, their stut- terin', or about them bein' off their nut."
"Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."
"Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did."
"Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down."
"I was at a point where I was ready to say I am what I am because of what I am and if you like me I'm grateful, and if you don't, what am I going to do about it?"
"There are always good parts. They may not pay what you want, and they may not have as many days' work as you want, they may not have the billing that you want, they may not have a lot of things, but — the content of the role itself — I find there are many roles."
"If there are, let's say, 20 astronauts, there may be two women among those 20 astronauts. If there are 20 FBI guys, there's one woman and the rest are men. So when somebody writes a script about life, usually the leading role will be the man, because mostly what women do is at home taking care of the children...That's the most important job there is on Earth. And why shouldn't women have it since they are the better of the two sexes?"
"I don't quite jump for joy, but I am awfully glad to see him."
"First of all, you have to marry the right person. If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it's never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely — by that time, you're both dead. So I think you have to marry for the right reasons, and marry the right person."
"He understands not only with his brain but with his heart. And that might be called love. Not quite sure, but maybe that's the key."
"I identified with both women. But Emma had a stronger message for the women I want to speak to now— women who work. I wanted to tell them that choosing to work doesn't make them oddballs and isn't antisocial."
"I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker. We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet."
"To this day, when men meet me, there's always that movie in the back of their mind."
"The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence."
"You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now."
"I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war."
"Some Vietnam veterans have told me what they did over there when they were animals. They have been giving testimony about it to the public, to juries, to judges. Some of the juries cry, and so do some of the judges. One Ex-Marine has a face like a Puerto Rican angel and a body count of 390. That means he and his unit killed 390 people in a variety of hideous ways, and the angel got to go count the dead bodies for the record. And now he and a lot of his buddies are trying to make up for what we made them do. We paid the taxes that bought the war that hired the men and dropped the fire that burned the huts and killed the people who then were the bodies that Scott counted. It's a rotten thing to brainwash someone into doing the dirty part of killing while we stay at home. It's a rotten thing to pretend the war is coming to an end when it's only taken to the air. And in 1972 if you don't fight against a rotten thing you become a part of it. What I'm asking you to do is take some risks. Stop paying war taxes, refuse the armed forces, organize against the air war, support the strikes and boycotts of farmers, workers and poor people, analyze the flag salute, give up the nation state, share your money, refuse to hate, be willing to work … in short, sisters and brothers, arm up with love and come from the shadows."
"If we survive this century it will only be because you and I refuse to become Nazis."
"Bangladesh, Bangladesh When the sun sinks in the west Die a million people of the Bangladesh"
"The only thing you can do about memory is just be very humble about it because it may not have much to do with reality."
"(about Woodstock) I think it was fantastic. I think the only way its been overdone was thinking it changed the world, politically and as far as the war went. It was only a part of things. It wasn’t it."
"I’ve never taken much time to do nothing, which I think is pretty important, especially at my age, and sort of contemplating what is coming. In this culture, we spend most of our time trying to avoid it. I would like to have more of a Buddhist approach."
"We are left in the dust right now and I don’t know if disappointed is the word. I’d say “overwhelmed” because nobody back in the 1960s or 1970s could have imagined anything this fuckin’ awful."
"I just sing when I feel like singing, feels sort of like exploding."
"(If you could speak to your younger self, what would you tell her?) Take it easy. Take a break. Relax a little."
"I tend more towards Buddhist and Native American thought. For me, the spirits are quite real."
"Blessed are the persecuted And blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the merciful And blessed are the ones who mourn"
"Against us is the law With its immensity of strength and power Against us is the law! Police know how to make a man A guilty or an innocent Against us is the power of police! The shameless lies that men have told Will ever more be paid in gold Against us is the power of the gold! Against us is racial hatred And the simple fact that we are poorMy father dear, I am a prisoner Don't be ashamed to tell my crime The crime of love and brotherhood And only silence is shame"
"Rebellion, revolution don't need dollars They need this instead Imagination, suffering, light and love And care for every human being You never steal, you never kill You are a part of hope and life The revolution goes from man to man And heart to heart And I sense when I look at the stars That we are children of life Death is small"
"Yes, your father and Bartolo They have fallen And yesterday they fought and fell But in the quest for joy and freedom And in the struggle of this life you'll find That there is love and sometimes more Yes, in the struggle you will find That you can love and be loved alsoForgive me all who are my friends I am with you I beg of you, do not cry"
"Here's to you, Nicola and Bart Rest forever here in our hearts The last and final moment is yours That agony is your triumph"
"We both know what memories can bring They bring diamonds and rust"
"Well you burst on the scene Already a legend The unwashed phenomenon The original vagabond You strayed into my arms And there you stayed Temporarily lost at sea The Madonna was yours for free Yes the girl on the half-shell Would keep you unharmed"
"Now you're telling me You're not nostalgic Then give me another word for it You who are so good with words And at keeping things vague Because I need some of that vagueness now It's all come back too clearly Yes I loved you dearly And if you're offering me diamonds and rust I've already paid"
"Miracles bowl me over And often will they do so Now I think I was asleep till I heard The voice of the great CarusoBring infinity home Let me embrace it one more time Make it the lilies of the field Or Caruso in his prime"
"With the precision of a hummingbird's heart Was the lord of the monarch butterflies One-time ruler of the world of art"
"True he was a vocal miracle But that's only secondary It's the soul of the monarch butterfly That I find a little bit scary"
"Perhaps he's just a vehicle To bear us to the hills of Truth That's Truth spelled with a great big T And peddled in the mystic's booth There are oh so many miracles That the western sky exposes Why go looking for lilacs When you're lying in a bed of roses?"
"We're the children of the 80's, haven't we grown We're tender as a lotus and we're tougher than stone And the age of our innocence is somewhere in the garden"
"Some of us may offer a surprise Recently have you looked in our eyes Maybe we're your conscience in disguise"
"We are the warriors of the sun The golden boys and the golden girls For a better world"
"I was born gifted. I can speak of my gifts with little or no modesty, but with tremendous gratitude, precisely because they are gifts, and not things which I created, or actions about which I might be proud. My greatest gift, given to me by forces which confound genetics, environment, race, or ambition, is a singing voice. My second greatest gift, without which I would be an entirely different person with an entirely different story to tell, is a desire to share that voice, and the bounties it has heaped upon me, with others. From that combination of gifts has developed an immeasurable wealth-a wealth of adventures, of friendships, and of plain joys. Over a period of nearly three decades I have sung from hundreds of concert stages, all over the world: Eastern and Western Europe, Japan, Australia, Northern Africa, South, Central, and North America, Canada, the Middle East, the Far East. I sang in the bomb shelters of Hanoi during the Vietnam War; in the Laotian refugee camps in Thailand; in the makeshift settlements of the boat people in Malaysia. I have had the privilege of meeting some extraordinary citizens of the world, both renowned and unsung: Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner; The Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, Mairead Corrigan in Belfast, Bertrand Russell, Cezar Chavez, Orlando Letelier; Bishop Tutu, Lech Walesa; Presidents Corazon Aquino, François Mitterrand, Jimmy Carter, and Giscard d'Estaing; the King of Sweden. Through Amnesty International I have met political prisoners who have endured repression and tortures under both right- and left-wing governments and who have astounded me with their humor, good cheer, and courage."
"Martin Luther King, Jr., more than any other public figure helped to solidify my ideas and inspired me to act upon them."
"My personal life has also been complicated-and public-though I am beginning to find more of a sense of peace and self-acceptance than I ever thought possible. Once I wanted to be married and have heaps of kids scrambling around me, licking cake mix off eggbeaters and riding Saint Bernards through the kitchen while I cooked stew over an open fire. Alas, those images bore no relation to my areas of competence, and since my marriage to David Harris dissolved in January of 1974 I have lived mainly alone, with occasional romantic interludes, the best of which are magical and splendidly impractical."
"My art, work, family and friends, my son Gabe, and a curious relationship with God remain the sustaining forces in my life."
"Through all these changes my social and political views have remained astoundingly steadfast. I have been true to the principles of nonviolence, developing a stronger and stronger aversion to the ideologies of both the far right and the far left and a deeper sense of and sorrow over the suffering they continue to produce all over the world."
"I am recording them for myself, to take a hard look back before facing forward in these most bizarre of times."
"I had an affair with a girl when I was twenty-two. It was wonderful. It happened, I assume, after an overdose of unhappiness at the end of an affair with a man, when I had a need for softness and understanding. I assume that the homosexuality within me, which people love to say is in all of us, made itself felt at that time, and saved me from becoming cold and bitter toward everyone. I slowly mended, and since the affair with Kimmie have not had another affair with a woman nor the conscious desire to."
"It seemed a miracle that I would meet, and have the blessing to know and work with, one of the two saints of the phenomenon which had won my heart when I was barely sixteen years old: the concept of radical nonviolence, introduced to the world as a revolutionary political tool by Mahatma Gandhi in India, and reintroduced now by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the United States of America."
"The first time I was in the South was in 1961. I was on a regular concert tour, and was barely aware of the civil rights movement, probably because I hadn't yet made the transition from Michael to the real world. I did discover, however, that no blacks were at any of my concerts, and would not have been allowed in if they had come. The following summer I wrote into the contract that I wouldn't sing unless blacks were admitted into the hall."
"There was a revolution going on all around us, and if a white businessman and his family wanted to hear me sing "Fair and Tender Maidens," they had to come and sit in this boiling hot room and integrate an audience."
"Of the many photographs I have of myself and famous people, there is one which I had framed and have never forgotten. It is of King and me at the head of that line of schoolchildren in Grenada, Mississippi. Ira is in back of me, and Andy, and then a long string of kids, all black."
"I have never been involved in the campaign of any major political candidate, preferring to work entirely outside of the party structure. Occasionally I have slipped a check and a note of encouragement to some brave congressperson who has defied everybody and risked his or her return to office because of principles."
"Seeing that nothing could come of our presence in Vietnam except disaster, I had a quiet revelation and decided to refuse to pay my military taxes."
"What I have to say is this: I do not believe in war. I do not believe in the weapons of war...I am not going yo volunteer 60% of my year's income tax that goes to armaments... Maybe the line should have been drawn when the bow and arrow were invented, maybe the gun, the cannon, maybe. Because now it is all wrong, all impractical, and all stupid. So all I can do is draw my own line now. I am no longer supporting my portion of the arms race . . ."
"one day I told Ira that I did not want to remain an ignoramus forever and asked if he would consider tutoring me more formally. Ira claims that I suggested the next idea, and I think that he did, but the discussion evolved into a proposition that we form a school called the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence."
"There was a great deal of profound joy in my life, but there was practically no fun. I didn't know much about having fun. I felt too guilty, as though I wasn't supposed to start having fun until everyone in the world was fed and clothed."
"I quit reading what the papers said about me because either they portrayed me as more self-sacrificing than I was, or they didn't like me and said, in a variety of ways, that I was a fake."
"Al Capp, creator of the "L'il Abner" comic strip, launched the most imaginative of the negative attacks, introducing a character into his strip called Joanie Phoanie...I asked for a retraction but did not get one."
"I learned to love the Japanese bow, and I use it to this day in concert to thank people for having come to hear me."
"Although I later fell in love with France, and now consider it my second home, the first country to win my young heart and seduce me with its language and beauty and fashion and flowers and intellect and men was Italy."
""Never close the door, you may need this person someday," is one of her favorite expressions. In 1983, at Newsweek's fiftieth anniversary celebration, I was seated across from Mary McCarthy at the head table. The big feature of the evening was a videotaped speech by Henry Kissinger. When he appeared on the big screen I stuffed my stockinged feet into their high heels and left the table, and stood in the lobby until it was finished. My moderation and diplomacy end where Henry's nose begins."
"I am thinking that Ronald Reagan is the same age as my father. They have some things in common. They are both young in spirit, buoyant, well-preserved, and optimistic. Beyond that, I can find only outstanding differences. The President is either ignorant of, or unconcerned by the ills of the world about which my father and I have been speaking. He is particularly immune to any part America may have in engendering these ills, as he dislikes the inconvenience of thinking beyond his own definitions of good-guys/bad-guys, and also doesn't like to be depressed. His pleasant, bumbling demeanor is preferable to the murderous efficiency of Kissinger and Kirkpatrick, but on the other hand, he is involved in the same dark and bloody deeds, all done under the same vast, all-encompassing and convenient banner of anticommunism. He feels that God is on his side, and that he really can do no wrong. What piques me is how this man and his followers can write off someone like my father. Because of my father's protestations about the raping of the Amazon forests, the pollution of our rivers, the misuse and depletion of natural energy, and the poisoning our children's air, people like my father are explained away with the flick of a wrist as a doomsayer, a depressive, a pessimistic liberal."
"there really is no normal, and the things that I do change: study Aikido, take photos, take a dance course, get back cooking, illustrate a songbook, take on a human rights project-write a book. But there are some friends who have remained constant"
"All of us alive are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival? (p. 322)"
"Women’s liberation was not on our radar, although I do remember noting to myself that women were basically running the office of the Boston draft resistance group behind the scenes. I was deeply involved because I had a draft resister boyfriend. That’s how most of us were involved (“Girls say yes to boys who say no,” as Joan Baez said"
"Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Joan Baez. She was the queen of folk music then and now. She took a liking to my songs and brought me with her to play concerts, where she had crowds of thousands of people enthralled with her beauty and voice. People would say, "What are you doing with that ragtag scrubby little waif?" And she'd tell everybody in no uncertain terms, "Now you better be quiet and listen to the songs." We even played a few of them together. Joan Baez is as tough-minded as they come. Love. And she's a free, independent spirit. Nobody can tell her what to do if she doesn't want to do it. I learned a lot of things from her. A woman with devastating honesty. And for her kind of love and devotion, I could never pay that back."
"She was something else, almost too much to take. Her voice was like that of a siren from off some Greek island. Just the sound of it could put you into a spell. She was an enchantress. You'd have to get yourself strapped to the mast like Odysseus and plug up your ears so you wouldn't hear her. She'd make you forget who you were."
"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols..."
"Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me."
"I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful — also some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, I actually wish I had her voice."
"What Tullio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears — and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also — you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know."
"What a lovely voice, but who cares?"
"Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddamn rules."
"Bel canto does not mean beautiful singing alone. It is, rather, the technique demanded by the composers of this style — Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. It is the same attitudes and demands of Mozart and Beethoven, for example, the same approach and the same technical difficulties faced by instrumentalists. You see, a musician is a musician. A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don't excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores! There are technical things written there to be performed, and they must be performed whether you like it or not. How will you get out of a trill? How will you get out of scales when they are written there, staring you in the face? It is not enough to have a beautiful voice. What does that mean? When you interpret a role, you have to have a thousand colors to portray happiness, joy, sorrow, fear. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? Even if you sing harshly sometimes, as I have frequently done, it is a necessity of expression. You have to do it, even if people will not understand. But in the long run they will, because you must persuade them of what you're doing."
"It takes a little more time to get into the role, but not very much more. In making a record you don't have the sense of projection over a distance as in an opera house. We have this microphone and this magnifies all details of a performance, all exaggerations. In the theater, you can get away with a very large, very grand phrase. For the microphone, you have to tone it down. It's the same as making a film, your gestures will be seen in close-up, so they cannot be exaggerated as they would be in a theater."
"Serafin was] an extraordinary coach, sharp as a vecchio lupo [old wolfe]. He opened a world to me, showed me there was a reason for everything, that even fiorature and trills ... have a reason in the composer's mind, that they are the expression of the stato d'animo [state of mind] of the character — that is, the way he feels at the moment, the passing emotions that take hold of him. He would coach us for every little detail, every movement, every word, every breath. One of the things he told me — and this is the basis of bel canto — is never to attack a note from underneath or from above, but always to prepare it in the face. He taught me that pauses are often more important than the music. He explained that there was a rhythm — these are the things you get only from that man! — a measure for the human ear, and that if a note was too long, it was no good after a while. A fermata always must be measured, and if there are two fermate close to one another in the score, you ignore one of them. He taught me the proportions of recitative — how it is elastic, the proportions altering so slightly that only you can understand it. ... But in performance he left you on your own. "When I am in the pit, I am there to serve you, because I have to save my performance." he would say. We would look down and feel we had a friend there. He was helping you all the way. He would mouth all the words. If you were not well, he would speed up the tempo, and if you were in top form, he would slow it down to let you breathe, to give you room. He was breathing with you, living the music with you, loving it with you. It was elastic, growing, living."
"I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must."
"I happen to think that Callas was the greatest singer of the 20th century. I feel that so many people have learned the wrong things from her, rather than the right things. She was a fabulous musician. When you listened to her, you could almost take dictation. All the dots were there. Anything that was wrong was because of the deterioration of the instrument over time. But usually musical things were not wrong. She has pitch problems and wobbles that came in later."
"Callas was such an example of professionalism. One thinks of her as a flighty diva, which is the wrong thing to learn from her, and she wasn’t at all."
"From Callas, I learned to respect the music. It’s part of the attention to detail. Today, everything seems to me a bit homogenized. Puccini sounds like Handel which sounds like Bellini. Callas had this sense of style, whether it was learned or just innate."
"Callas was superhuman. She was on a whole other plane. She really was a Diva — the goddess — and the rest of us are basically her handmaidens."
"That is such a difficult question. There are times when certain people are blessed — and cursed — with an extraordinary gift, in which the gift is almost greater than the human being. Callas was one of these people. It was as if her own wishes, her life, her own happiness were all subservient to this incredible, incredible gift that she was given, this gift that reached out and taught us things about music that we knew very well, but showed us new things, things we never thought about, new possibilities. I think that is why singers admire her so. I think that’s why conductors admire her so. I know it’s why I admire her so. And she paid a tremendously difficult and expensive price for this career."
"I don’t think she always understood what she did or why she did it. She knew she had a tremendous effect on audiences and on people. But it was not something she could always live with gracefully or happily."
"I once said to her “It must be a very enviable thing to be Maria Callas.” And she said, “No, it’s a very terrible thing to be Maria Callas, because it’s a question of trying to understand something you can never really understand.” She couldn’t really explain what she did. It was all done by instinct. It was something embedded deep within her."
"I adored this lady, and I respected her work ethic. She always wanted to improve her understanding of a piece. "Casta Diva", [for instance] — what interested me most was how she gave the runs and the cadenzas words. That always floored me. I always felt I heard her saying something — it was never just singing notes. That alone is an art. It’s an art that you can try to achieve, but you can’t copy, because that’s just imitating without delving into [how she felt] about that particular fioritura. ... how many other artists since Callas have you heard and thought, "She sang gorgeously, but I never cried?""
"Maria Callas remains an icon with an instantly recognizable voice. But she was also the first opera singer to be equipped with the ingredients of international celebrity: charisma, glamour, wealth, she had it all, together with the touches of scandal and tragedy that made her story so compelling. Since her time, every female opera singer has been measured against this powerful role model. ... Callas modernized our metier. Her life was a tireless creative search. She was one of the first to recognize the importance of being an actress as well as a singer, and was uncompromising in her belief that, in order to achieve a complete dramatic performance, all aspects of the operatic genre require equal attention. She was a pioneer in restoring forgotten repertoire and in exploring new ways of musical interpretation. To this day, I find that many of her exemplary recordings are astounding."
"Callas studied the text, the meaning of the words, and as a result, she became a diva. She became the Great Callas. Because she studied the character, she entered the mind of the character, and she brought the character to life onstage. Today, young singers don’t have this mindset. They don’t have the kind of technique that Callas had. ...Price, Milanov and Tebaldi had stupendous voices and great careers. [But] Callas, as a performer, as someone who expressed the real meaning of the words, was the best. The best. There is no doubt about this — not only for her sound, but because she studied so much. Callas is the diva. She is important to young singers, because she was a serious singer onstage, and she left a great legacy. I don’t know, though, if they can listen and learn from what she left on her recordings."
"Callas? She was pure electricity."
"She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great idea of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas."
"I used to listen again and again to recordings by Maria Callas. She was so musical and so theatrical at the same time. That is rare! I admire the way she cares for the words, so that everything comes from the text. She takes everything from the text and the music to elaborate a character and make her really interesting and impressive. She brings her own nature to the part — what she is, her passion, her fragility, doubts, feelings, violence — everything she is. And she never betrays the text or the music. We're very different, thank goodness, and I am happy with my own voice. But I feel very close to her in terms of discipline — trying to be as disciplined as she. She is an example to follow! Maybe in the past, people were more interested in voice and beautiful sounds. Maria Callas changed that. She arrived, brought a new way of doing opera, opened the way for us. We don't have any excuse now for not doing it!"
"Callas, way above the rest. Tebaldi had a fantastic voice, like an angel's. But even when Callas's voice wasn't perfect, she had so much interpretation. Opera is storytelling. Feelings must be conveyed. Acting must be moving. And Callas had it all."
"Maria had in her blood, in her veins, in her subconscious all the tradition of the Greek Tragedy. She was born that way. In fact, she had her best time during 10 years. That was very short. But the "Myth of La Callas" will continue for ever, because she did so much! She was a magnetic force on stage, the others didn't exist anymore. It's a gift of Nature, a gift of God. It' a talent, a great talent."
"Oh, many. A few, even superior. For sheer strength of character, I wouldn't have dared to cross swords with Callas. I would rather have gone six rounds with Jack Dempsey!"
"The Chicago Lucia [1954], which I witnessed, absolutely blew everybody's mind, because she stopped the show in the middle of the mad scene. She bowed, [while] the audience went wild, and kept that pose for fourteen minutes. Callas was our lesson, in those days, for how one performed. She had such complete ... we say in German "souveränität" — being above everything. She had this aura of magic. People were always mystified by what she did....Tebaldi had a much more beautiful voice and didn’t have that hollow, breathy sound, which at times was just plain ugly. [But] Callas was unusual because despite the sound of her voice, the force of her personality just magnetized people. It was so present, it came across the footlights at you, that ferocity of hers. It was just all-encompassing. Callas brought the personality, the drama, the magic, the surreal quality to the bel canto roles that Sutherland never did."
"It seems almost inexplicable that the human race, with its ravenous appetite for entertainment, should have failed over so many decades to produce another Callas and Elvis. Neither Pavarotti nor Madonna come close, nor ever will. The desperate efforts of a universal music industry have yielded nothing more enduring than Cecilia Bartoli, the mini-voiced mezzo who tops the opera charts, and the high-kicking, faintly archaic Kylie Minogue, who belongs more to the smiley era of the Andrews Sisters than to the grim virtual reality of Bill Gates. In fact, when we commemorate the Presley and Callas anniversaries, one month apart, we confirm a catastrophic failure of cultural renewal."
"In all her recordings, one witnesses this incredible technique at work, whether it is Puritani, Sonnambula, Lucia, Norma or Abduction, [or] turning around to sing Gioconda and Kundry. This ability to devour all of vocal music history, and take it into herself and spew out such excellent examples of all these different styles — you just think, “How is a voice able to encompass all of this?” Well, it’s not the voice, it’s the woman behind the voice."
"No coloratura or fioritura was ever done for its own sake — it was always at the service of some expressive challenge....Her runs always gave the impression of being done so effortlessly. I liken it to the greatest ballerinas — they never made you aware of how painful it is to be en pointe. Callas transcended and transformed pain and difficulty into sheer weightlessness and ease and joy. It's absolute perfection in itself, and then on top of that she overlays expression — that's the thing I adored about this singer. She must have spent hours, days, weeks, years on this art, you know? The one I'm floored by is the Entführung that she did. ["Martern aller Arten"] is just beyond belief. I don’t think anyone has sung it better...."
"There was some wonderful demonic thing that worked inside of her to fuse the elements of technique and expression and transcend the [roles she assayed.] ... She's an inspiration to everyone that follows her, but she’s also a kind of cautionary tale for artists, so they understand that you risk a great deal when you’re that hungry."
"Listening to Callas is like reading Shakespeare: you’re always going to be knocked senseless by some incredible insight into humanity. She is a huge bonfire! The thread, the "inner serpent" that she would get in certain music was so complete — for example, in the Lucia recording, the phrase "Alfin, son tua." Lucia, at her absolute happiest moment, would have said to Edgardo, "I am finally yours." For me, the woman Lucia came to life in that moment, and I understood why she was out of her mind, you know? You’ve got it all in that one phrase."
"[Callas was] An outstanding historical figure, ranking with Malibran, Viardot, Toscanini, and Mahler. She is somewhat like Viardot, Chorley's "tones of an engaging tenderness" mingled with those "of a less winning quality." It was a flawed voice. But then Callas sought to capture in her singing not just beauty but a whole humanity, and within her system, the flaws feed the feeling, the sour plangency and the strident defiance becoming aspects of the canto. They were literally defects of her voice; she bent them into advantages of her singing. [Her voice] is what she had. What she made was a musical information of what was happening to her characters, a searching virtuosity. Suffering, delight, humility, hubris, despair, rhapsody — all this was musically appointed, through her use of the voice flying the text upon the notes...."
"Yes, the woman could act. At the very moment she entered, you saw in full Aida, Anna Bolena, Gioconda, felt their eyes on you even before they uttered a sound. ... The gestures — so authentically antique, yet strangely devised entirely on her own — were completely equalized into her stylistics, with one set for the Greeks and Romans, another for post-Renaissance royalty, a third for more contemporary characters. Yet, all this was subsidiary to the heavy Kunst of developing the psychology of the roles under the supervision of the music, of singing the acting...."
"She sang as if she had the most beautiful voice in the world — and sang so beautifully that she might as well have had such a voice. Thus she moved opera back a century to the age of Viardot, the acting singer."
"When I was around thirteen, fourteen years old, in communist Poland, we had no recordings at all. I don’t know how my mother found this old-fashioned recording, with Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi — you know, it was Tosca. I had only this one recording in my house, and I was listening to [it] ten times a day. I knew by heart everything — I could sing Cavaradossi, Tosca, Scarpia — each role. I was very young, and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do in my life. And when I for the first time heard Maria Callas, suddenly I got proof — “Yes, I want to be a singer, I want to sing like she sings!”"
"It’s enough to hear her, I’m positive! Because she could say everything only with her voice! I can imagine everything, I can see everything in front of my eye."
"People are funny, because they can’t be happy. If they have somebody like Maria Callas in front of them, they always try to find something wrong, something bad, a few mistakes, you know? And maybe she had three voices, maybe she had three ranges, I don’t know — I am professional singer. Nothing disturbed me, nothing! I bought everything that she offered me. Why? Because all of her voices, her registers, she used how they should be used — just to tell us something! She had a message for us, a fantastic message. She had such a big power, and then she just disappeared."
"Without hesitation, Maria Callas. . . Maria Callas gave me the opera bug. To pursue that area of placing my instrument, which I had already found out from me was not ordinary. I took a plane to Chicago, during the 50’s when she was there for the first time doing Madama Butterfly. And the excitement! Histrionically, she remade Opera, in the sense that she merged the sound with the action. Now, I’m not that kind of electric personality. but she taught me to fit my own movements, my own acceptance of claiming center-stage from her own doing that. It was one of the most exciting experiences I have ever known."
"I think the secret of Maria Callas was her willpower. Maria Callas was born with all sorts of disadvantages. Her voice was not of the most beautiful quality, and still, she made this instrument the most expressive, the most telling, the most true to the music that she interpreted. Maria was not born a beautiful woman. Maria was fat, obese, ungraceful — when you realize the type of body she was born with, like that of a pachyderm — but she turned herself into possibly the most beautiful lady on the stage."
"Maria had a way of even transforming her body for the exigencies of a role, which is a great triumph. In La traviata, everything would slope down; everything indicated sickness, fatigue, softness. Her arms would move as if they had no bones, like the great ballerinas. In Medea, everything was angular. She’d never make a soft gesture; even the walk she used was like a tiger’s walk."
"There's no one in her league. That's it. Period."
"Emmylou and I are both Maria Callas fans. We listen to that all the time. She's the greatest chick singer ever. I learn more about bluegrass singing, more about singing Mexican songs, more about singing rock-and-roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays."
"If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned."
"Maria, you are a monster; you are not an artist nor a woman nor a human being, but a monster."
"That woman is a miracle!"
"The greatest technician I ever met ! She could do everything."
"Listen to me, everyone speak about Callas. But I know Callas. I know Callas before she was Callas. She was fat and she had this vociaccia -- you know what a vociaccia is? You go kill a cat and record its scream. She had this bad skin. And she had this rich husband. We laugh at her, you know that? And then, I sat in on a rehearsal with Maestro Serafin. You know, it was Parsifal and I was supposed to see if I do one of the flowers. I didn't. And she sing that music. In Italian of course. And he tell her this and he tell her that and little by little this voice had all the nature in it -- the forest and the magic castle and hatred that is love. And little by little she not fat with bad skin and rich-husband-asleep-in-the-corner; she witch who burn you by standing there. Maestro Serafin he say to me afterwards, you know now something about Parsifal. I say, 'No, Maestro, I know much more. I know how to study. And I know that we are more than voices. We are spirit, we are god when we sing, if we mean it.' Oh yes, they will go on about Tebaldi this and Freni that. Beautiful, beautiful voices, amazing. They work hard. They sincere. They suffer. They more talented than Maria, sure. But she was the genius. Genius come from genio -- spirit. And that make her more than all of us. So I learn from that. Don't let them take from you because you are something they don't expect. Work and fight and work and give, and maybe once in a while you are good."
"In October of 1948, just after I moved to Florence to head the Teatro Comunale, Serafin called me from Rome. "Come at once," he begged. "You must hear this girl. She is discouraged and has bought a ticket to return to America. Help me convince her to stay." So, at his home, I met Maria Callas. She was tall and heavy, but had an interesting face, real presence, expression, intelligence. With Serafin at the piano, she did her usual repertory for me — Gioconda, Turandot, Aida, Tristan. Parts of the voice were beautiful, other empty, and she used strange portamenti. During a pause, she said she had studied with Elvira de Hidalgo, which struck me as curious, for de Hidalgo had been a coloratura. "I know coloratura pieces too," Callas explained, "but I'm a dramatic soprano." "Well," I asked, "can we hear something of a different nature?" So she sang the aria from I Puritani, with the cabaletta. I was overwhelmed, and tears streamed down Serafin's cheeks. This was the kind of singer one read about in books from the nineteenth century — a real dramatic coloratura."
"I've loved opera since I was a child. I study her; I mean of course I can't sing like that, but she has taught me a lot about discovering how to deliver the inner narrative of a song. Because I listen to her songs--I don't speak Italian or I don't speak whatever language she's singing--but I understand what she's conveying through her emotional interpretation."
"Callas’ magnificence lay in both her natural gift and her incredible commitment to mastering the correct style with the great conductors that she worked with. All the things that you think are happening spontaneously are planned and organized. They’re part of the style. Her stylistic mastery, as well as her personality and voice, still make people talk today. It’s that magic thing that happens."
"Whatever genius is, I think there’s a strong element of genius in [Callas]."
"I didn’t dare study her phrasing, but of all the singers I listen to, it’s Callas I love most. I always have. And I was lucky enough to be at the Met[ropolitan Opera] when she did the master classes at Juilliard [School]. I saw them, and saw how she worked with people and what her knowledge was. There was no mystery to it. It was very tangible. The grounding was sort of like a ballerina’s footing in barre exercises. To get to the point where you get your feet to leap into the air, you have to begin very close to the floor. That’s what I think a lot of her musicianship represents to me: It’s her extraordinary devotion."
"[Hearing Callas in Norma in 1952] was a shock, a wonderful shock. You just got shivers up and down the spine. It was a bigger sound in those earlier performances, before she lost weight. I think she tried very hard to recreate the sort of “fatness” of the sound which she had when she was as fat as she was. But when she lost the weight, she couldn’t seem to sustain the great sound that she had made, and the body seemed to be too frail to support that sound that she was making. Oh, but it was oh so exciting. It was thrilling. I don’t think that anyone who heard Callas after 1955 really heard the Callas voice."
"[Backstage] she was wonderful; she was marvelous. She was easy-going and a worker. Oh my goodness! She rehearsed and rehearsed; always full-voice, never pushing the sound, but she would work till she got what was wanted. And of course had very poor eyesight. She used to pace out how many steps she would go, and there were steps and different levels on stage, as they were, in Norma. And she knew how many paces she could take before she had to take a step, because she was blind as a bat. She had terrible eyesight and, of course, couldn’t wear contact lenses at the stage. She did later."
"[Working with Callas was] like nothing else. Compared to nothing. I would say singers are reproductive artists, but she was a creative artist. She was in the role so much, it was fabulous, fabulous. She was very modest, very easy. But I think she saw red when she saw a journalist. But I could discuss a breath or anything with her. She didn't really have an ego when it came to the work. Her curse was that she was so musical, so intelligent, that she could take on roles that her voice couldn't handle. But what she did was always wonderful. There's a good example of what I mean. Callas — artist. Tebaldi — wonderful singer."
"This rivality was really building from the people of the newspapers and the fans. But I think it was very good for both of us, because the publicity was so big and it created a very big interest about me and Maria and was very good in the end. But I don’t know why they put this kind of rivality, because the voice was very different. She was really something unusual. And I remember that I was very young artist too, and I stayed near the radio every time that I know that there was something on radio by Maria. The most fantastic thing was the possibility for her to sing the soprano coloratura with this big voice! This was something really special. Fantastic absolutely!"
"To work with her, you had to really understand how she saw your role, not how you saw it. She had a very clear-cut understanding of her role, and you had to fit into that interpretation. She was so great, [yet] she could not distance herself from a role. It was actually quite terrifying — she would at times actually cry while singing! You must only portray the emotions, not become personally involved. But Maria always became the role. She was such a servant of the text and the composer, she would tear her voice to ribbons to accomplish it!"
"I did it to serve Callas, for one must serve a Callas."
"The last great artist. When you think this woman was nearly blind, and often sang standing a good 150 feet from the podium. But her sensitivity! Even if she could not see, she sensed the music and always came in exactly with my downbeat. When we rehearsed, she was so precise, already note-perfect. ... For over thirty years, I was Arturo Toscanini's assistant, and from the very first rehearsal, he demanded every nuance from the orchestra, just as if it were a full performance. The piano, the forte, the staccato, the legato — all from the start. And Callas did this too. ... She was not just a singer, but a complete artist. It's foolish to discuss her as a voice. She must be viewed totally — as a complex of music, drama, movement. There is no one like her today. She was an esthetic phenomenon."
"About Maria Callas, I am honestly practically devoid of words. And that must be the case when one comes up against a phenomenon that one simply can't explain, but whom one appreciates. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, I've been in love with her for years. She is, I think without any doubt at all, (and I don't mind what letters come to me tomorrow) the greatest theatrical, musical artist of our time.... She has an enormous feeling for music. She has an enormous feeling for words. She has an enormous feeling for the dramatic situation. She can convey all those things to an audience in a way that practically no other artist alive today can do."
"The magic of a Callas is a quality few artists have, something special, something different. There are many very good artists, but very few who have that sixth sense, the additional, the plus quality. It is something which lifts them from the ground: they become like semi-gods. She had it. Nureyev has it, [Laurence] Olivier. But Olivier is also a case of an extremely rich knowledge of everything. He is completely coherent in his life, onstage. Whatever he does is part of a complete personality. Maria is a common girl behind the wings, but when she goes onstage, or even when she talks about her work or begins to hum a tune, she immediately assumes this additional quality. For me, Maria is always a miracle. you cannot understand or explain her. You can explain everything Olivier does because it is all part of a professional genius. But Maria can switch from nothing to everything, from earth to heaven. What is it this woman has? I don't know, but when that miracle happens, she is a new soul, a new entity."
"Your audience gives you everything you need. They tell you. There is no director who can direct you like an audience. You step out on the stage and you can feel it is a nervous audience. So you calm them down. I come out before an audience and maybe my house burned down an hour ago, maybe my husband stayed out all night, but I stand there. I'm still. I don't move. I wait for the introduction. Maybe I cough. Maybe I touch myself. But before I do anything, I got them with me, right there in my hand and comfortable. That's my job, to make them comfortable, because if they wanted to be nervous they could have stayed home and added up their bills."
"Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?"
"John always said he had three favorite women. Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard and me."
"I love them hoes, love them hoes, love them hoes I love them hoes, love them hoes, love them hoes I love them hoes, love them hoes, love them hoes I love them—ooh!—hoes"
"You look sad even though we just met No need to get upset But I got a show, gotta go, so I thank you And if you wanna still get sexed down You could catch the next Greyhound But until then, I gotta go, so I thank you"
"When I met you, everything seemed right But the truth is you fucked on the first night It sank in slow; now I know you're a ho Yo, I shoulda listened when my friends told me so"
"I caught you in the club last week You looked like a freak in the VIP Sittin' on laps and suckin' on necks Actin' like a slut 'cause you're trippin' on X"
"I got just what you're looking for Yo, I freak it like you like it, then you want some more Let's explore the bedroom floor Over and over and over"
"Fuck what I said It don't mean shit now Fuck the presents Might as well throw 'em out Fuck all those kisses They didn't mean jack Fuck you, you ho I don't want you back"
"You played me You even gave him head!"
"Now it's O-over But I do admit I'm sad It hurts real bad I can't sweat that, 'cause I loved a ho"
"Friends front in front of me Fuckin' wannabes In your ear But they don't know Eamon"
"When you come, please, girl, act right Don't try none of your crazy shit tonight So when you come, please, girl, act right I don't give a fuck; you been actin' up"
"You should know by now When I take you out, you act proper When we at places You know your place when hoes holler Fuck that shit You know the rules Every girl that I fuck gets put through school"
"Hey trick Better start actin' right (Whoa oh) Oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh Swallow You know that it's tastin' right (Whoa oh) Oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh"
"Do whatcha gotta do I fucked your friend this afternoon"
"First I saw your gorgeous eyes Then noticed your ass was fly I just thought we could have fun I could show you affection"
"I can show you who's the man Let me show you with my hands I just want you close to me I'll get you wet Just wait and see"
"I may not be your man, baby But you know I'm drivin' you crazy That's why you'll fuck with me for the rest of your life (Rest of your life) I know you're lovin' the sex Swallow it up; it's better than X That's why you're stuck with me for the rest of your life (Rest of your life)"
"What I gotta do? Cats don't even have a clue Can't stand to see Me kick a flow so unbelievably And never gave a hand Askin' 'bout the backup plan Now that it's true Forever tellin' me that you always knew"
"Check the mailbox and I got my check Sit back, relax as I sip my Beck's Think about all the shit I can get So I spend and spend 'til I think I'm set"
"Smokin' Drinkin' Livin' Laughin' Fuckin' Buggin' Lovin' Singin' Spendin' Chillin' Bonin' Moanin'"
"I'm 'bout to bless the world again Got chickens drippin', wishin' with my pen Gonna sell millions on top of millions I'm just gonna blow"
"And I been waitin' all my life And I been havin' big dreams times twice"
"When I call (Yeah) Girl, don't be wastin' my time (Uh) You know what's good (Uh-huh) Drink, fuck, and come and get high Hope you learn So you don't have to ever ask why Now you know I love fuckin' all the time"
"Body (Body) I wanna touch your body (Body) I wanna feel your body (Body) Body Whoa!"
"I never trusted you one minute Tellin' people that I'm finished Number one in twenty countries But to you I'm still nobody When I'm around you, life gets harder But when you're sleepin', E gets smarter (Uh, yeah)"
"Every time I hear somebody doubt me, I just laugh about it Keeps me hungry, focused on the cash Trust me, don't fuck with me or catch you disrespecting me There's friends of mine do whatever I ask See, your ass is just a joke Front but love me on the low Stop the swinging from my dick Bitch, get off my shit"
"It was four in the morning I'm yawning and feening and scheming on a chick to lay When somebody said the afterparty was jumpin' off around my way I said, "I'm wit' it My dick gon' get it It's all love, life's so smooth""
"So I seen chickens, started spittin' Got me thinkin', "Should I let her ride the dick tonight?" Fuck that, put her in the back Let her yap 'cause she know I'm 'bout to lay the pipe Start buggin' when I'm clubbin' Do I really need the hooker hangin' by my side? Pulled over; shit, I fucked her quick Then kicked her out my ride"
"Yeah Yeah, that's right (Ho) Ho, ho (Oh) Uh Staten Island, uh (Whoa) Yeah (Uh) Come on (Yeah) Uh Yo Yeah, bitch, bob ya head (Yeah) Ho-wop, come on (Yeah, uh)"
"Don't know what ya talkin' 'bout, I'll always have hoes by my side (Uh) Smokin' blunts, gettin' drunk, stayin' high 'til the very last day I die (Uh) And there's nothing like new pussy, so there's no worries 'bout wives (Yeah) And there ain't nobody out there gonna tell me how to live my life"
"I live the fast life, keep my shit tight Never steer left 'cause I'm always right Damn, I'm so fine, and I'ma stay shinin' Let the party keep goin', flowin' Livin' life like whoa No stress, so I never feel old "Slow down" is what I been told Fuck that, I keep it outta control Like whoa (Come on)"
"See, I would fly a million miles on the worst airline (Coach!) All around the world Just to see your frown Turn into a smile"
"I met a girl the other day, and She said, "Wow, Eamon You're different from the other men I see" Well, uh I said, "I'm different 'cause I got soul, baby""
"I ain't got a fancy car I own 'Cause I done put millions up my nose I ain't got a uptown lavish flat I've signed some bad contracts"
"Famous friends don't call me no more And I ain't on sold-out arena tours I don't got trap beats with mumble rap But, baby, I'm back"
"Mama don't cry I couldn't stop I know I put You through a lot"
"You're my flesh and blood, I'm part Of you Yeah When I'm harming me I'm harming you I'm your baby boy, and you're My best friend I won't let you down again"
"I'll make It right At any cost I fought The war And almost lost I'll be back In your arms soon"
"I pray and plead you go and get up and leave, girl Go save yourself while there's time Your mommy, daddy ain't approving of me, girl So go and find that good fit, goodbye"
"Damn, I ain't lyin' These hoes love providin' When my dick hits your pussy, there's no denyin' Kissin' my body Make me come like shotties Love them trees, but I got a new favorite hobby There ain't no stoppin' From hoes gone ho-woppin' When I come to town, you know what the fuck's poppin'"
"See, I don't (Who the fuck knows?) Know why (Huh-huh) You're sayin' that I snitched (I ain't no rat, bitch) You're the dick-suckin', off-key skank bitch (Whoo!)"
"First of all, I'd like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—without Him I would not be here today."
"A very special thanks to all the women that have cum in and out of my life."
"I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE THANKS TO GOD ALMIGHTY FOR THE STRENGTH TO CREATE."
"[T]he whole concept of ["Fuck It"] is "fuck it, I don't give a fuck, just fuck it," meaning fuck the relationship, fuck what the people will think of me, just fuck it, fuck everything, ya know?"
"I call [my music] ho-wop. It's the flavor of hip-hop, the flavor of doo-wop, and hoes."
"[My lyrical content is] adult shit, but it's not. Everybody curses now, and teenagers swear more than anyone. I've got a three-year-old nephew running around the house saying to me, "Fuck you, you ho." It's fucking insane, man."
"[I]t's so funny when I do TV shows and they're like, "Yeah, you gotta keep it clean, man." I'm like, "How the fuck do I keep it clean? My shit is called 'Fuck It.' Get the fuck out of here. Don't put me on the show if you want me to keep it clean.""
"The thing is, I'm not saying "fuck" just to say it. Every time I curse, I mean it. It might sound weird and funny, but I fucking mean the shit."
"Whoever says I'm a one-hit wonder can go suck a dick."
"My parents are the shit, man. I love them. They've stuck by me forever. They made it really nice for me. I never went through any hard times. The only hard times I went through are with hoes."
"There's so much bullshit around now in pop and hip-hop, and everybody's talking about the same fucking shit, like get the fuck outta here. That shit is horrible. I don't hate anybody, but that shit pisses me off. It's bullshit. So I wanna change things up and make people go, "Aw, man, this is the hot shit. Eamon talks from the heart. He's real.""
"I get pissed off when people at radio and TV shows say, "Can you keep a clean show?" Motherfuckers! Don't they know who they booked? It was the same with the single ["Fuck It"]. They wanted me to change the words to "Forget it" or some bullshit."
"It amazes me that there's been a fuss over me cursing when there's rappers talking about killing people."
"[In New York there are a lot of Irish-Italians because there] are a lot of Irish and a lot of Italians and they fuck each other."
"That's the story that went around, But here's the real low-down: Put the blame on Mame, boys, Put the blame on Mame."
"You always break the kindest heart With a hasty word you can't recall, So if I broke your heart last night It's because I love you most of all."
"Amado mio When we're together I'm in a dream world Of sweet delight."
"My experience with first-time directors is that they’re all extremely prepared, because I guess they’re worried. They spend weeks preparing everything, and they have to get used to the fact that once you get there, everything goes wrong and you have to make everything up."
"I have everything I want. I really can't think of any ambitions or things to strive for. I don't want to leave the house, I'm happy at home, I really am. I am."
"I've been living in New York for about seven years and a lot of the people that I started singing with don't sing any more, don't write any more. So the fact that I can still do that that's kind of a gift, that's what I sort of stay focused on."
"If you consider the definition of authenticity, it's saying something and actually doing it. I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic."
"Being human is difficult. Some people make it more difficult than others. I was one of those people."
"When I found somebody who I fell in love with, it made me feel different than I felt the rest of the day. It was electrifying. That's what inspired the 'Off to the Races' melodies. That's one of the times when you're feeling electrified by someone else and they make you happy to be alive."
"I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all."
"I wanted to be part of a high-class scene of musicians. It was half-inspired because I didn't have many friends, and I was hoping that I would meet people and fall in love and start a community around me, the way they used to do in the '60s."
"If all that I was actually going to be allowed to have by the media was money, loads of money, then fuck it … What I actually wanted was something quiet and simple: a writer's community and respect."
"There is a high fantasy element in the music, but I’m incredibly plugged into what’s going on politically, socially and pretty much in every way except pop-culturally. I’ve had a very real life, and there have been a lot of things that took a lot of strength and wherewithal to figure out… things I’m still figuring out. That’s probably why the music has such an element of escapism to it"
"When you’re an introvert like me and you’ve been lonely for a while, and then you find someone who understands you, you become really attached to them. It’s a real release."
"My best friends are rappers my boyfriends have been rappers. My dearest friends have been from all over the place, so before you make comments again about a WOC/POC issue, I’m not the one storming the capital, I’m literally changing the world by putting my life and thoughts and love out there on the table 24 seven. Respect it."
"I... was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me."
"Making lasting gifts for animals in our estate plans is perhaps the single most important thing we can do to ensure animals have the strongest possible voice for their protection."
"That town was stifling. Three of us got out. Me, John Barth and the guy who wrote "You Are My Sunshine." My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression."
"I can't imagine working without an audience."
"PETA has a proven track record of success. Each victory PETA wins for the animals is a stepping stone upon which we build a more compassionate world for all beings - and we will never give up our fight until all animals are treated with respect and kindness."
"I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy. I... was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me. I'd never even been to Wrigley Field. I never even enjoyed baseball that much, but I loved being there, the crowd was lovely, and they all sang with me!"
"It was like the Beatles had arrived, you know. These four elderly ladies, and they were screaming for us-screaming for us. It was wonderful."
"You know, the way I'm accepted, I almost feel like Judy Garland, truly. It makes no sense to me because I don't think that I've been any more outspoken... Or maybe I have, I don't know. But everyone I know supports anything that has to do with raising money or with AIDS."
"I watch news programs and I love Comedy Central. I love The Daily Show-it's smarter than anything else. I also like The Critic and Celebrity Death Match and South Park. I love all of that."
"There were subjects we tackled that had never been even discussed, like I had an abortion. Nobody ever talked about that."
"I've been a Democrat my whole life. That's what makes Maude and Dorothy so believable, we have the same viewpoints on how our country should be handled."
"In the 8th Grade I found I had a voice for opera, so I followed that path a little, but my impulse has always been an actor, I have always liked cinema, and let's face it, opera singers are just bad actors! I didn't want to translate myself in that direction. My heroes were people like Spencer Tracy, Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Marvin, Richardson, Caine, all those sort."
"I'm not the kind of actor to worry. Certain actors can't translate to the big screen, so I'm glad I can do both. If 60% of an audience know your name, a lot more will know your face. I have a name which has a certain level of recognition now, which also means producers and directors know me, and are able to recognise the range of things that I can do."
"The left in Hollywood are quick to flaunt their political allegiances; this provides them the ability to both grow in number and maintain their level of influence. Meanwhile, the right in Hollywood, for the most part, hide in the shadows and cower. When they do make their views known, conservatives are minimized and their careers are attacked as irrelevant, or as “not A-list enough.”"
"When I was a boy, while watching the funeral procession of the Great Martin Luther King Jr. on NBC, I observed a rickety wooden cart being pulled by two mules and behind the cart, a sea of people. In the cart lay the body of MLK; at that moment, he represented the totality of the human struggle. I remember feeling then, while watching the procession on TV, that we, as a country, were either going to pull together or else come apart."
"People are a bit blind. They don’t see life. Being a photographer I see life, every inch of it. I’m obsessed with nature and animals and the earth; I find concrete things that distract me. Most people are the opposite… they find life boring, squirrels or sparrows boring, whereas I find them fascinating. It has to do with the way we live. It probably started with religion which leads some people astray. To fight over whose god is better has nothing to do with love or spirituality. Perhaps it’s guilt. We are suppressed and spend our time trying to figure out who we are. The most shocking thing I’ve learned concerns abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, abuse to every living creature. There is a world of little Hitlers out there. Slaughterhouses, vivisection and experimenting on animals for no reason is sick. Luckily younger people are becoming more aware."
"I'm trying to reproduce healthily in a vegetarian way every kind of flesh there is — bacon, smoked salmon, roast meat. We're working on it. A lot of vegetarians complain that my book [Linda McCartney's Home Cooking] is meat-oriented and some of the products look like meat. For me, though, it's a matter of not just preaching — I hate to do it and it doesn't work — but helping to make the alternatives more attractive to more people. Change the eating habits and maybe you change the thinking habits. … I'm convinced that part of the reason the world is so sick is that so many people eat flesh. What are you doing but eating a slab of fear? … Look how long it took to abolish slavery. There was a time when much of the "civilized" world thought it was acceptable. And then they saw that it was wrong. I think the same thing will happen with eating animals. I have faith that the day will come when the world looks back and says, "How could we have done that?""
"At 13, I decided to give up all meat and fish. My parents were even more surprised and cautiously supportive – provided I learned how to get enough protein. The first vegetarian cookbook I ever bought to learn more about how to be a healthy vegetarian was "Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking." In a very pragmatic way, Linda McCartney helped me meet my mother’s conditions for being a vegetarian, to get enough protein and eat a well-balanced diet and, in the process, helped both my mom and me feel good about the choice I had made."
"Wild thing You make my heart sing You make everything groovy Wild thing Wild thing, I think I love you But I wanna know for sure So come on and hold me tight I love you."
"There'll be no strings to bind your hands Not if my love can't bind your heart There's no need to take a stand For it was I who chose to start I see no need to take me home I'm old enough to face the dawn Just call me angel of the morning, angel Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby Just call me angel of the morning, angel Then slowly turn away from me."
"To be or not to be, To free or not to free, To crawl or not to crawl. Fuck all those perfect people! To sleep or not to sleep, To creep or not to creep. And some can't remember, What others recall... Fuck all those perfect people!"
"Be that as it may, be that as it may not be! Jesus was a Union electrician by the sea of Galilee. He lit up the first moving picture just to brighten up the show. Will you be there in the last video?"
"Be that as it may, be that as it might! Jesus shot in eight millimeter, he preferred the black and white. He said: "do not play up to the lens, boys and girls, just give me what you know and I will see you in the last video!""
"Will you be there in the last video? Will your name be on the roll call at the end, my friend? Where the angels, and the gamblers, and the prisoners come and go? Will you be there in the last video?"
"Be that as it may, be that as it may not be! Some of us get in the way, oh, just look at you and me! And screw all the perfect people! Jesus said that long ago! Will you be there in the last video?"