Pigeon-holes are only comfortable for pigeons.

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.

The very best thing that could happen to a voice, if it shows any promise at all, is when it is very young to leave it alone and to let it develop quite naturally, and to let the person go on as long as possible with the sheer joy of singing.

My arias make me take off as if I were on a trampoline.

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.

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

There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world.