When I finally did stop and look at my life, I realized that I had done what I'd set out to do. In my pitiful little way, I had climbed the mountain I had chosen. And there I was, on top.

Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are doing pretty well at getting noticed - a lot of people are doing pretty well at it. But you wonder whether they'll last, because many of them don't have the ability to get an audience to love them. You say, "That's a fabulous body" or "I like that song"; you don't say, "I love them because I know them." You can't know them.

It's the one who won't be taken that cannot seem to give, and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.

If you're frightened, you're out of luck.

A lot of people have no access to beauty. When I was growing up, my mother had only a few pretty things to look at.

As you age, feelings do diminish.

[On Helen Reddy:] She ought to be arrested for loitering in front of an orchestra.