Singing beautiful melodies is one thing, but to deliver the text so that the people understand it, even in a foreign language, has to be worked at very hard.

I was born in Montreal and came from a lower-middle-class family.

My mother was a wonderful, wonderful woman with a lovely voice who hated housework, hated cooking even more and loved her children. She was always arranging church activities such as a bazaar.

I have had five phenomenal children, a great husband and, even though we are separated, we are good friends.

It makes one a better person to have had hardships and to have overcome hardships and not to blame anybody else for your mistakes.

After Bruno Walter, my career went in leaps and bounds. I have had 35 years of a career that is just incredible, and a wonderful time all over the world.

Perhaps, once I am gone, the one thing I might be remembered for is having sung a great deal of Mahler with a great many phenomenal conductors. It is wonderful music, very spiritual.

Another turn in my life happened when I took on the Canada Council.

I have been all over the world. I have met some wonderful people, lots of them very simple, whom nobody will ever hear about, but who have been fabulous to me.

I have three grandchildren and am hoping for 20.

If somebody asks me to recommend a young, good singer, I always do.

The most precious gift you can ever give to a young woman is, appreciating and understanding her true feelings

We're all trying to keep up in this stupid raceBut that won't be much funWhen we're floating in space.

What's more important than who's going to be the first black manager is who's going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.

When I hooked up with them I was still going to Narcotics Anonymous. But they were never into drugs. If it weren't for the band, I think I'd still be getting high.

When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.

I was always the guy - out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid.

All God's Chillun got Rhythm.

I love family. In this movie [Everybody Loves Somebody], my character is a successful OB-GYN and yet she goes back to her teenage years when she's with her parents. Like, that's me.

If the human body's obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me.

I read about some movie where they did everything on blue screen, and the actors were not even connecting to each other.