“I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage.”

You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there.

That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil’s means; great teachers foresee a pupil’s ends.

Love is so much better when you are not married.

It’s a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven’t.

I was always too mature for my age – and not very happy. I had no young friends. I wish I could go back to those days. If I could only live it all again, how I would play and enjoy other girls. What a fool I was.

Don’t talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules.

I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best.

I will not be sued! I have the voice of an angel!

ART is domination. It’s making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours.

I want to be a mature artist with a different kind of thinking.

The public is a monster and that is why I am not eager to return to the stage.

Paris dictates fashion to the whole world.

There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age. Children should have a wonderful childhood. They should not be given too much responsibility.

I don’t know what happens to me on stage. Something else seems to take over.

On stage, I am in the dark.

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house.

I don’t think I can marry, I’m not fit for it, I’m not real enough. That’s the trouble. I’m a puppet that’s realised what’s wrong with itself and it’s horrible. I’m propped up somewhere all alone, watching the real people go past. I’m propped up crying in a corner.

It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

I’ve been married forty-five years. I think laughter is the secret.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.

Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee.

Every day I grapple between ‘I’m going to get married’ and ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life alone with a poodle.’

Any woman who still thinks marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition is only proving that she doesn’t understand either men or percentages.

Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts, good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.