Andrea Bocelli Quotes

I'm quite shy, so I hate seeing my private life splashed over the papers.

When I sing for myself, I sing in a more free, athletic way. When I face an audience, there is always some fear that makes me put the brakes on a bit.

I studied to be a lawyer, and after that I did something, obviously, completely different. With change, you learn something. If you do the same thing over and over again, you never learn anything.

I have always tried to perform the music I love, and I think I am lucky because my preferences are often the ones of the public.

An opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level, you need to refrain from activities so as to be able to express this power.

I think I don't want to use drugs or medicine, so nothing. The only way is to go on stage and to hope.

I studied law, and I was ready to be a lawyer in my country (Italy). Probably it is better for many clients that I changed my direction! But I was happy to study and I was a good student, I finished my studies. And everything that you learn is useful in life.

I don't like crying. I'm a country boy, and we're the product of our upbringing. As a boy, I was told that men don't cry.

I like reading... French, Russian classics - Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert. I also like Hemingway, Virginia Woolf.

People are often quite surprised by the sport and leisure activities practised by the blind. For example, tandem cycling is very popular.

I've been to almost every country in the world, and the most frustrating thing for me has been that my schedule has always been so busy that there's so little time before and after performances to explore where I'm visiting.

I don't have an extraordinary degree of self-confidence, but I know the gift I have been given from God and I try to share it with as many people as possible. Having a great voice is not a merit. I don't think it is a merit.

The voice changes very slowly. I keep mine well under control and try with all my might to keep it exactly as it was at the very beginning.

Faith has a role to play in life. It is not related to success. It is the other way round. Success is related to faith. Faith comes first.

I love eating shabu-shabu in Japan - a kind of beef hotpot. But if you're talking about authentic, traditional food, then Italian cooking is one of the best in the world.

Losing my sight had nothing to do with my focus on music. My passion for music was already there, so it would be a mistake to give too much significance to my blindness.

If you have a great love of singing, supported by others' fondness for your voice, then it is worth making every effort, of making every sacrifice, to achieve your goal. A great voice will easily find teachers who are willing to help a struggling young talent, and the ways of the Lord are infinite.

Popularity gets up people's noses. But I understand the importance and the function of popular music. There is an artistic purpose. Popular music helps people to develop a curiosity and leads them towards classical music.

Music is a prerogative of those who are willing to spend time to study it, understand and love it, well aware of the fact that one life is not enough to improve just one single note of what has already been written and performed.

When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of music.

I loved riding bikes and horses. I was eight when I started having lessons, and when my father bought me my own horse I couldn't wait to go off on my own.

I am a very lazy man, so, for me, the dream is to be at home on the chair with my family.

Now I'm more sure and I feel myself more comfortable singing.

Living is dangerous. The important thing is to know the limits.

If you could have the arms of Hercules, legs as swift as the wind. If you could leap shoulder high above the rim, have the kick of a dolphin, the reflexes of a cat. If you could have all these, you would have the body, you would have the tools. But you would not have greatness until you understand that the strongest muscle is the heart. To me, that's the soul of the Olympic Games.

It is the uninvolved parent who has to resort to strictness.

Probably the first time I left Italy was to travel by train to Lourdes. I went with my mother and my grandmother - who was a very religious person - so it was a pilgrimage of sorts. I remember it as a very intense, but beautiful experience.

I listen to music every day for study reasons, and I confess that I have very little knowledge of what is going on in the hit parades around the world. I have no prejudices for any kind of music genre, and I listen with pleasure to many songs on the radio that my children already know of by heart, while I hear them practically for the first time.

My style in Italian is very old-style.

The most widely criticised singers in the history of opera, Maria Callas and Franco Corelli, happen also to be the best singers. I am honoured for being part of their group.

I want to have time for myself, my family and my friends. It's important because in order to sing well, you must have inspiration, and inspiration comes from life, from living.

I have to face life with a newly found passion. I must rediscover the irresistible will to learn, to live and to love.

It's always beautiful to sing with other great voices. I like voices in general. It's a big privilege to have great singers next to me.

To sing a song is like whispering to a child's ear. It is an art heavily relying on improvisation.

I do not think anyone can ever do anything without the help and will of God.

I was overcome with happiness, love, and tenderness ... Right after he was washed, I studied him with my hands: his downy little head, his little nose, everything on the tiny body.

Success is related to faith. Faith comes first.

I don't like being called 'macho.' Macho basically means stupid and a real Italian man is not macho, he's smart. That's smart in both senses: elegant and clever.

I have always loved music and singing, and I am open to listen to any type of music. Regardless of my mood, my heart is always set racing when I listen to opera. When I decide which music I want to hear, my choice is almost invariably an opera recording.

If you don't have the possibility of listening to music, you can't know if you love it.

I know that my passion is for opera, but sometimes I like also to sing songs, because there are many beautiful melodies.

A career is like a house: it's made of many bricks, and each brick has the same value, because without any one of them, the house would collapse.

Because I practice often with my children at home.

Fatherhood is a very natural thing; it's not something that shakes up my life but rather it enriches it.

What is beautiful enchants me. I mean not just physical beauty but a wider concept of beauty. There is beauty in poetry and in great musical or singing performances. There is beauty everywhere if you can just see it.

I first started playing in piano bars for three reasons - to make money, to be in the company of my friends - and also to hook up with young girls. I always knew, even before I played in piano bars, about the effect of my voice.

All that counts in life is intention.

I have trouble with modern art. But in general, all art forms fascinate me - art is the way human beings express what we can't say in words.