Top 45 Quotes by Jessye Norman

I didn't think at all as a young child that music would be my profession. It was just something that one did along with going to Brownies or going to church or going to school or anything else that one did in sort of one's very young life.

I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.

I have enjoyed most particularly reading the correspondence between Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The genuine friendship, competitiveness and support that thread through their communications are life lessons for us all.

I am deeply spiritual; I revel in those things that make for good - the things that we can do to shed a little light, to help place an oft-dissonant universe back in tune with itself... Long live art, long live friendship, long live the joy of life!

One has to draw upon one's own musical thoughts and one's own musical acumen, and not to be afraid to let that come into one's work. Perhaps that comes with more experience, but perhaps it also comes with daring, and believing that you should.

I think that it is expansive for the mind, for the fantasy of children and grownups alike, to understand that the world is huge. There is so much in the world to experience, and the odds are so essential to life.