Beverly Sills quotes

Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano renowned for her expressive voice and charismatic stage presence. Her performances, especially at the New York City Opera, made opera more popular and accessible to wider audiences. She became an influential arts administrator, raising support for music institutions in the United States. Here are 21 of her quotes:

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

Beverly Sills

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Beverly Sills

I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up. I'm not about to change now.

Beverly Sills

My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.

Beverly Sills

I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter.

Beverly Sills

A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.

Beverly Sills

So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.

Beverly Sills

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

Beverly Sills

In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us.

Beverly Sills

There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm. Men will always be attracted to women with nice soft arms and a fleshy bosom.

Beverly Sills

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.

Beverly Sills

Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.

Beverly Sills

Attachment to spiritual things is... just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.

Beverly Sills

Christians should never fail to sense the operation of an angelic glory. It forever eclipses the world of demonic powers, as the sun does a candle's light.

Beverly Sills

There is a growing strength in women, but it is in the forehead, not in the forearm.

Beverly Sills

I needed to sing - desperately.

Beverly Sills

I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not - more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving.

Beverly Sills

You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!

Beverly Sills