Acquiring a repertoire in these days, when the vocal literature is so immense, so overwhelming, that the student with sense will devote all his energies to work and not imagine himself a martyr to art.

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

A student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests.

In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed by study.

Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every day American publishers.

If the student could give up her work on my advice, she had better give it up without it. One does not study for a goal. The goal is a mere accident.

The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art, is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism.