Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't feel like a big star.
There are notes between notes, you know.
Horns always influenced me more than voices.
I've always been a Democrat; it runs in my family.
The night I won at the Apollo, I was only doing it for the $10.
Good management has helped me find much of the success I've got.
You simply have to love show business to make the risk worthwhile.
I am not a special person. I am a regular person who does special things.
When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice.
I just quit in the third year of high school and started singing at amateur hours.
My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.
I just get onstage and sing. I don't think about how I'm going to do it - it's too complicated.
There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.
What was the competition? Well, I remember this Puerto Rican who came out in a short skirt and a gun.
I'm not heart-broken if I don't have a hit. But I guess a hit would help. It makes the money go up a bit.
I don't think I ever modeled myself after a singer. I've more or less copied the styles of horn-tooters right from the start.
I guess the only trouble was that George was very slow in getting around to proposing. Several times, I almost proposed to him.
It sure is a nice feeling to know that people will remember you after you're gone, that you'll manage to be a little bit of history.
Choir singing's a wonderful thing for what ails you. There's a lot of meaning in a hymn if you think about it when you're singing it.
Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.
You have to have a little soul in your singing. The kind of soul that's in the spirituals. That's why I'd like to include spiritual material in the sets I do. It's a part of my life.
They always ask me the same questions. Where was I born? When did I start singing? Who have I worked with? I don't understand why they can't just talk to me without all that question bit.
When I sing a tune, the lyrics are important to me. Most of the standard lyrics I know well. And as soon as I hear an arrangement, I get ideas, kind of like blowing a horn. I guess I never sing a tune the same way twice.
I said to George, 'Why don't you manage me?' He looked at me, a little bit surprised. Then he replied, 'Sure, Sass, I'll manage you, but it would be even better if we managed each other.' The next morning, we got our marriage license at the court.
I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer...I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues – just a right-out blues – but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music.