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

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.

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.

Am I afraid of high notes? Of course I am afraid. What sane man is not?

Philosophy is the reflection of reflective mind.

I owe my solitude to other people.

But stones, too, can lie.

The final portrait is often furthest from the truth.

When you lose the title, that doesn't mean you lose the contract to what you had. Just like when you win the title, it doesn't mean you win brains, PhDs and MAs.

When I like a musician I want to see a picture or a video of them.

No one can escape death and unhappiness. If people expect only happiness in life, they will be disappointed.

I pretty much just talk to and about men the way men talk to and about women.

I'm here today because I refused to be unhappy. I took a chance.