If you're afraid of death, I would say, either fight for your life or come to grips with the fact you may not make it. And in doing that there shouldn't be bitterness. There should be a celebration. There should be an understanding of how lucky you are. That's how I feel.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to get married. I think because of the way I was brought up and seeing my parents in love.

I have been doing voice work my entire life, and I adore it. It is really rewarding stuff.

I've always wanted to make teaching a part of my life.

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.

We are all afraid for our confidence, for the future, for the world. That is the nature of the human imagination. Yet every man, every civilization, has gone forward because of its engagement with what it has set itself to do.

Use the creative process - singing, writing, art, dance, whatever - to get to know yourself better.

In country music the lyric is important and the melodies get a little more complex all the time, and you hear marvelous new singers who are interested in writing and interpreting a lyric and in all form of popular music.