“The only thing better than singing is more singing.”

Sometimes when we’re flying or in the hotel, I might run over songs, or in the bathroom.

Every time I look down on this timeless town, whether blue or gray be her skies, whether loud be her cheers, or whether soft be her tears, more and more do I realize that. I love Paris.

Whatever she does to my songs, she always makes them sound better.

I think I do better when I sing.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

Coming through the years, and finding that I not only have just the fans of my day, but the young ones of today – that’s what it means, it means it was worth all of it.

Everybody wants to know about my style and how it came about. It’s no big secret. It’s the way I feel.

When we were at the Apollo, Holiday was a block away. I asked her for her autograph.

She has been more famous, over a longer time span, than any other female singer.

I’ve had some wonderful love affairs and some that didn’t work out. I don’t want to dwell on that and I don’t want to put people down, but I think all the fabulous places I’ve been, the wonderful things that have happened for me, the great people I’ve met – that ought to make a story.

Music is the universal language. It brings people closer together.

When I’m on stage I feel at home

Ella knows her way around her voice as very few people today. But there are times when she seems to be unaware there are things the human voice just doesn’t do. She does them.

What everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved.

I don’t want to say the wrong thing, which I always do. I think I do better when I sing.

It isn’t where you came from, its where you’re going that counts.

I can’t talk about my singing; I’m inside it. How can you describe something you’re inside of?

I reside in a new colony for the Chinese-singing banjo player, with a population of one. At least I have something I have to do with my life.

From her gospel-singing mother Cissy Houston, her legendary pop-diva cousin Dionne Warwick, and her Queen of Soul godmother Aretha Franklin

I am the first instrument. I am the voice. I do not imitate other instruments. Other instruments imitate me.

The buzz you get when you’re playing a song and everyone is screaming and dancing and what have you and singing along is incredible.

Singing for stage, if you don’t hear yourself, that’s when you push, and that’s when you can hurt your voice sometimes. So if I can hear myself in my ear, it really helps me to find that balance of how loud I needed to be singing.

Sometimes I sing along in the car, if something good is playing like Marvin Gaye.

At dances when I was a little kid, Art would be up there singing while I’d be dancing with some girl a foot taller than me.