Diana Ross Quotes

I think that if my voice for some reason changes - because your voice does change - then it's time for me not to sing.

Icon. What is an icon? When someone is iconic it means they have established a certain kind of legacy possibly, and I think it does come with time. It's something in the arts, I feel. Maybe not, maybe it doesn't have to be in the arts exactly. I'm not really sure. But I don't think you are born an icon.

A reporter once asked me if I ever cried. I wonder if people think I'm just as hard as a rock and have no emotions at all.

I don't care about vacations. I go away and I come back real quick because I like my work. I really like my work to consume me.

Criticism, even when you try to ignore it, can hurt. I have cried over many articles written about me, but I move on and I don't hold on to that.

I don't know what my life would have been like if I'd never gotten into show business.

I have never gotten into the label thing.

I don't judge people by their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, so I find it really hard to identify someone by saying that they're a gay person or a black person or a Jewish person.

I really think I want to live in a lot of places.I don't want possessions to hold me down.

My family called me a wiggle tail because I was a little skinny, wiry kid full of energy.

I was brought up in this part of Detroit that they used to call the ghetto.

It seems like I don't have a lot of time for all the things I need to do. I'm spreading myself fairly thin. I have responsibilities to my children. I have a big staff that works for me. And when you have a staff, and I'm sure you know this, you're always concerned with everybody's life all the time.

You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.

My name, Diana Ross, is my name and nobody should be able to use that for exploitative purposes but me.

Discipline is a necessary tool to help you get what you want in life. It forces you to stay on center and to move away from the things that are not necessary.

Either black people end up being the best in sports, or else it's show business. You know, we all got rhythm.

People can take your name and write a book about you and they make money off of it. How is the public supposed to know you're not authorizing that book? As soon as you make a big stink about it it only makes the book sell more.

I really don't think that Detroit was any different than New York of Boston or Philadelphia. Kids always wanted to listen to music outside because that's where they hung out with their friends.

My life has often been described as 'from rags to riches' but in fact, the Ross's were never raggedy.

I don't have to sit around and wait for the next movie to come along, I can go out and sing.

I can be a better me than anyone can.

If I'm with a man I'm soft and buttery.

I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.

I think a responsibility comes with notoriety, but I never think of it as power. It's more like something you hold, like grains of sand. If you keep your hand closed, you can have it and possess it, but if you open your fingers in any way, you can lose it just as quickly.

If I do an interview, then I take full responsibility. I figure I'm not going to talk to anyone that I think is unethical anyway.

I learned something from that. If someone asks me something that I really don't want to do, I say no. I have to trust that. And I'm not afraid to talk money.

I even thought of adopting a child as a single mother.

I'd traveled a lot, was going temporarily insane and became very successful, but there was no one to take that all home to.

You can have a lot of New York and still see what's going on in the rest of the world, I think - like in China.

I just think Josephine Baker life story needs to be done. I think she was an extraordinary woman. To see someone who was basically a showgirl have the kind of lifestyle she had was extraordinary. I really think she made her own lifestyle.

I look forward to the future - and going into the studio to make new music.

I use Jimmy Galanos gowns for real special occasions and things - television, special occasions where I know I'm being filmed. But I never really wear his gowns on stage. My stage gowns are more costumey. There's different levels of things that I wear.I would never wear my stage gowns to a party.

It tickles me, my daughter said that to me. She said, "Mommie, why is it that every time they say your name they put your age right behind it?"

With the Supremes I made so much money so fast all I wanted to do was buy clothes and pretty things. Now I'm comfortable with money and it's comfortable with me.

So every time I make a new circuit, a new time around, then I change the show. You can't change the songs; people still want to hear "Lady Sings the Blues" and they still want to hear some of the oldies.

I have a lust for life.

It takes a long time to get to be a diva. I mean, you gotta work at it.

The first time I heard a Billie Holiday record, I thought, 'What's so great about Billie Holiday?'

The only recording studio was in Motown - it was called Tamla/Motown at that time and we used to audition there because Smokey Robinson was at that studio and Berry Gordy was the president. I remember asking Smokey to listen to my group and he did. For the first couple of years we were just singing background. We used to back up Marvin Gaye; Mary Wells was there then, Marv Johnson, the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Junior Walker and the All-Stars.