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" I didn't think at all as a young child that music would be my profession. It was just something that one did along with going to Brownies or going to church or going to school or anything else that one did in sort of one's very young life. "

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" I sing in Hungarian. I read Hungarian. I do not pretend to speak Hungarian, but I sing in languages that I have studied as languages. And I find that to be central and very, very helpful. I think if you're not really cognizant of what every single word means, I think that might be a little tricky. "

Jessye Norman

Pretend

Think

Find

" I have enjoyed most particularly reading the correspondence between Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The genuine friendship, competitiveness and support that thread through their communications are life lessons for us all. "

Jessye Norman

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" I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range. "

Jessye Norman

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" I'm dying always. "

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" I want to sing more in Spanish. I want to sing the songs of Granados; the songs of Montsalvatge. To do things that truly I've not done before. "

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" It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion. "

Jessye Norman

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" If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live. "

" I think that, certainly, most of my operatic roles are in German. I think it happened because, of course, I was lucky in that I was invited to sing, first of all, my operatic debut in Berlin at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which was West Berlin at the time. "

" I have a particular affliction. I am unable to say a word I can't spell. "

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" There's no anger ever in a spiritual. There's always the dream of a hope of a better day coming. That God understands the troubles that I'm experiencing. "

" I am grateful that my horizons were not narrowed at the outset. "

Jessye Norman

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" I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic undertaking singing actually is. "

" As for my voice, it cannot be categorised - and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range. "

" One needs more than ambition and talent to make a success of anything, really. There must be love and a vocation. "

" A person has the right, and I think the responsibility, to develop all of their talents. "

" Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself. "

" One of the reasons that I take such joy in being a trustee of the New York Public Library is the love of reading that I found as a child in the Saturday morning library events for preschoolers and first and second graders as I was growing up in Augusta, GA. "

" There is a lot of propaganda about opera singers not being able to act. That's not necessarily true and hasn't been true for a very long time. And certainly there were those instances when singers were told they need to fit into a certain size dress. Of course, women. Men? They just make the costume bigger. "

" I want to keep learning, keep exploring, keep doing more. "

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" I enjoy reading about the lives of musicians, and find many similarities in their ideas of preparation and their utter devotion to this great, eternal language: music. "

" I was given a stethoscope in a child's 'doctor's bag' at about age six and I loved it! One could hear the heart beating through that plastic toy. "

" It takes a caring community to raise a child that will be a whole person and a contributing citizen. "

" I walk an 11-minute mile without huffing and puffing. "

" 'Swan,' by Mary Oliver. Poems and prose. Reading from this book is as if visiting a very wise friend. There is wisdom and welcoming kindness on every page. "