Singers

"As an actor in Iceland, I found good training and colleagues in the National Theatre, and none of us could have predicted the kind of fame that LazyTown found globally. When you are an actor or do anything in the arts for a career, your life will take many unexpected twists and turns.Robbie was a product of many years of thinking and doing. What you see in the TV show is different from his first personality. One of the big challenges playing a part like Robbie is bringing the right kind of energy. You don't want to scare the littlest viewers but you have to bring a certain villain personality with humor.As many actors have said before me, being famous or well known can be nice or it can be a burden, it all depends on how you look at it. I love my fans - they have come along on this ride with me and have said too many nice things for me to ever count. I am grateful.There is no difference in preparing for Robbie Rotten or any classical serious role.... Every part you prepare for, you have to be honest and truthful and wholly believe that the character exists – otherwise no one will accept your acting. Kids are a demanding audience and they KNOW when something is untruthful."

"Se um dia alguém perguntar por mim Diz que vivi para te amar. Antes de ti, só existi Cansado e sem nada para dar."

"I am proud to be Ukrainian."

"For some reason, everybody consider me to be Belorussian, because since I have moved from a village good three decades have already passed.Countrymen resent: are you a Belorussian indeed? And I agree as I have never considered myself to be neither Belorussian nor even more so Russian."

"Over the years I felt call to motherland that sometimes I even wanted to cry because of nostalgia. You will not believe but my present flat is a real Ukrainian house. I collect embroidered towels and embroidered shirts. More and more often I recollect the words of Nina Matvienko, whom I respect a lot: "Where your navel is dug there you will always feel a call". And it is true."

"That's talent!! I'll take him to the stage. The military don't need such voice."

"I like films that rest in the memory so I try and choose parts which have some kind of social or emotional force. For me, being an actress is not just a profession but a profession of faith."

"The newspapers were saying, 'You have AIDS.' They actually said I was dead. I just threw myself into my work when the whispering campaign turned really ugly. I think Camille saved me. I felt incredibly paranoid, just as Camille did. And do you know? I was able to use that in doing Camille's scenes. It made them better."

"I am a follower of hyaluronic acid – always in small doses of course – to fill wrinkles and fine lines."

""Overwrite — put down everything that comes to your mind," I was told. "Be explicit, elaborate. Judicious pruning will be done later. Don't be afraid to name names. Lawyers will tooth-comb the book before it gets into print and protect you from libel suits. Don't be afraid to shock people. Be daring. Be spicy. Tell all!" I did. I followed everybody's advice. About seven hundred thirty pages were judiciously pruned in order to protect the innocent, to make it possible for the book to be sent through the U.S. mails, and to prevent me from spending the twilight years of my life in jail for criminal libel. What's left is here. PLEASE LIKE IT."

"Walter Slezak says he's tired of arguing with his kids about borrowing the car. "The next time I want it," he says, "I'm just going to take it.""

"You have to work five or six years in the theatre—in hit shows—to make people sick and tired of you, but this you can accomplish in only a few weeks on television. It's a remarkable medium."

"Spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't like."

"Until I was about 12 or 13, it was just, “Oh sure, okay, fine.” Then when I was about 14, my father asked, “Are you serious about this? Do you really want to be an actor?” I said, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” So, he took me in his little office, sat me down for about an hour and told me everything bad about this business. He said, “You have to be prepared for all the awful things that happen to actors, the rejection, humiliation, and embarrassment and receiving bad reviews if you do get a job. You have to be prepared for all of that.”"

"My biggest dream in life is the one about catching a tram in my underwear and then Helen Mirren gets on and blows up a balloon in the shape of Walter Slezak. I’m most grateful for any attention I get."

"After America had entered the war in December 1941 all postal service with Germany and Austria was stopped. But Papa had faithfully kept on writing to me, a ten-page letter nearly every week. They were never mailed and I found them, neatly bundled, sealed and addressed to me. … And now, on the plane, winging back home, I began to read his letters. They are remarkable documents. It's the whole war, as seen from the other side, through the eyes of a man who detested the fascist system, who hated the Nazis with a white fury. In the midst of the astonishing German victories in the early part of the war he was firmly convinced that Hitler MUST and WOULD lose. He dreaded communism, and all his predictions have come true. He told of all the spying that went on, the denunciations to the Gestapo, the sudden disappearances of innocent people, of the daily new edicts and restrictions, of confiscations that were nothing but robberies, arrests, and executions; how every crime committed was draped in the mantilla of legality. His great perception, intelligence, decency, his wonderful humanity, his love of music and above all his worshipful adoration for his Elsa — through every page they shimmered with luminescent radiance."

"Papa told her about a Lohengrin performance. It was just before his first entrance. He was ready to step into the boat, which, drawn by a swan, was to take him on-stage. Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: "What time's the next swan?" That story has since become a classic in operatic lore."

"I never lie unless it is absolutely necessary. Or convenient."

"In that wonderful musical show Knickerbocker Holiday Maxwell Anderson defined the outstanding characteristics of an American as "one who refuses to take orders!" I think that I qualified for that, my chosen nationality, at an early age. As far back as I can remember, an expressly given order triggered instant defiance. My little mind started functioning like an IBM machine; signals flashed in my resistance center, lights flickered around my resentment glands, bell and buzzer alerted all the cunning of a five-year-old. Strategy and tactics went to work, not to rest till they had circumvented or defied that specific order. I don't know if that character trait was deplorable or laudable; I only know that I have never been able to lose it. And I am extremely grateful that I was too young to serve in the First World War and too old for the Second; I surely would have been court-martialed for insubordination, and expired in front of a firing squad. Even today, at my ripe old age, if someone suggests I do something and this suggestion is tinged with an excessive amount of authority, I immediately turn into a bristling fortress of resistance."

"Biographies usually begin with the smack on the bottom and the first lusty cry of the subject. I deplore this literary custom, because it is impossible to remember anything about one's birth firsthand. It is bound to be hearsay, and embellished, gilded hearsay at that."

"I'm jealous that you are CCP [Communist Party of China] members. The CCP is really great. The CCP's promises don't take 100 years, they are fulfilled in decades. I want to be a CCP member."

"More than 120 takes. Those kinds of things ... You [say] "Wow, Jackie's good." It's not good. You can do it. Except, do you have the patience or not?"

"...in the 10 years after Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule ... I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not... If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic... I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

"I feel the pride of being a Chinese everywhere, the Five-starred Red Flag is respected worldwide."

"I believe in loyalty."

"I have so much respect of his talent, his passion, the strength of his voice."

"Well, I actually don't know him personally. I would like to, he is very handsome."

"No, well, first of all let me tell you that it is carefully, because you never know when the little elf of the bottle is going to get out of it and will hit you with it and will let you watching little stars."

"Well, I am so far, and you put me a bottle of tequila here."

"Oh dear God, one misses the land when is far away."

"I don't know, I think that the eyes, I like eyes very much."

"I don't like feeling lonely... but in solitude one can get to revalue many things."

"I'm not a teetotaler. People know that I like to have my drinks. Specially when I go to work. I don't like to get drunk. I don't go out drunk. I never would, for respect to the audience. But sometimes I have a drink. I am a very nervous person, extremely nervous. So to calm me down, I like having a drink before going on stage."

"What I hate the most in the world is injustice. Unfortunately, there is a lot of injustice in the world. Once we understood the mission that God gave us in this earth that is to sing to love, try to repeat his word, spread his word, because there is no other thing that we do but sing to love, tell people to be happy. Not to hurt each other, hit each other, kill each other."

"I was a depressive and self-destructive alcoholic, but I was lucky enough to meet the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and be rescued by it 15 years ago."

"Those who have had the opportunity to be rescued from an addiction, whatever it is, we are obliged to talk about this and work together to let people know how to get out of it."

"For three years I was immersed in a depression, I did not know how to assimilate the loss of my voice, which was a reality."

"The couples I married, I never chose them, they did."

"Well, I like people a lot. I could define myself as a pacific being, a lover of nature, music and people. The qualities that I admire the most in the human being is the capacity of getting along with its similars in holy peace."

"If you can measure your height from head to heaven, he is taller than you."

"Luis Miguel says profession damaged his listening ability."

"I think that Luis Miguel is the best singer in Spanish. Things have to be recognized as they are. Luis Miguel is the best singer. I'm telling you from the standpoint of a fellow singer, a professional. I dedicate to this and I hear many people singing. I could say it about another person who sing very well, there are many people who sing very well, but he is the best singer and it must be acknowledged."

"I would love to work with him … I love his voice and style."

"I love listening to him... his songs are very romantic."

"Luis Miguel has something special, an irresistible charm."

"That young man has one of the clearest voices, his throat is a Stradivarius."

"This kid has a unique voice."

"Luis Miguel has the voice and style of the young Frank Sinatra, so I'm not mistaken when I say that if Frank would have been born in Latin America, his name would be Luis Miguel."

"I listen to everything, all types of music."

"Simply: the practice makes the master. Practice every day, or at least try to sing, as much as you can. And I don´t stop, if I´m not on tour, I´m on a studio, and if I don´t, I do it for pleasure, I do it every day, is something that is part of my life."