[During fee negotiations for singing in Vienna:] I'm not interested in money, but it must be more than anyone else gets.

Only when I was singing did I feel loved.

Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me.

My poor sight gives me an advantage. I can't see the people in the audience who are scratching their heads while I am lost in my role and giving everything I have to the drama.

What is there in life if you do not work? There is only sensation, and there are only a few sensations— you cannot live on them. You can only live on work, by work, through work. How can you live with self-respect if you do not do things as well as lies in you?

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours.

I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity.