The better voice doesn't mean being a better singer.

People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to.

The rivalry is with ourself. I try to be better than is possible. I fight against myself, not against the other.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

I work with The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. I sit proudly as one of only two recovering addicts on their board.

Identify with failures in others by listing yours.

One thing I've often thought is that I never want to tell anybody else what to do. It's hard enough to figure out what I want to do.

Genesis 9 is where the animals went wild, and God gave them wildness. After the flood, that's when he made animals wild. Up until that time, everybody was vegetarian.

As long as movies are depressing, life isn't.

Every year I spend one month just sailing, but I still work when Im on the boat. You never separate work from leisure. A boat is like a magic world, like a little island.

I get crazy upset when I feel mothers or babies are not getting the loving care they need.

But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.

High finance trembles in its boots whenever there is some political complication.