When you arrive at a certain level it's very easy to say yes: that is the moment to learn to say no.

I am extraordinarily lucky, I was born in a family of strong moral values, and in my life I was able to do what I liked best: debuts, great theatres, but above all, inner and deep satisfaction.

I've always said that music is like literature.

Italians have no sense of the dramatic.

The happiest moment in my life? When my doctor told me I was completely cured of leukemia.

I am always living very good moments.

I love good food but I follow strict rules the days I perform.

Everybody, even me, sometimes had to compromise on something, doing things we know to be wrong, and this happens doing whatever job in the world. But a singer must have the courage of saying no.

Yes, you must have the courage of being free.

I've always been a big fan of the American soul sound.

When you arrive at a certain level it's very easy to say yes: that is the moment to learn to say no.

Yes, thanks to God... my life has a goal, much more important than my artistic activities, that is the struggle against Leukemia.

At first we got along real well. Now... it's pretty much just a professional relationship.

I can't see why we can't toss in a Junior Walker or Wilson Pickett number in every once in a while.

It's logical for us to sing, but not necessarily operatic pieces.

Music isn't only a profession.

Certain things give you another perspective in life.

I carry on singing because I love it. The closer you are to the end, the more you understand how important it is.

I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family. I have a wonderful relationship with my brother and sister; this makes me feel that I know always where I belong.

I have great emotion every time I go on stage. Nothing in life gives me the same satisfaction that my profession gives me.

If a man becomes more mature due to certain episodes in his life, it gives him the opportunity to look at life in a much more deep way. I believe the artist and the man work parallel, with the same feelings, the same soul, the same sensitivity.

In recitals, you are naked before the audience - well, naked with your jacket and tails. The audience sees and hears the real person, not some role you are interpreting.

It is important to be passionate, but it is also important to combine the heart and the head. I have made mistakes in both my private and professional lives.

It is not easy for me to sing consonants, and I am sorry if I don't sing the 'S'.

People naturally want to know about what happened, about my leukemia. They ask the same questions again and again. And there have been so many positive conclusions, even through the bad times, that I don't mind at all to be reminded of my struggles.

The voice is like a man, like ourselves: we all feel melancholic about what we have lost, the things we could do when we were young. But having the possibility to still perform is wonderful. The voice loses elasticity as you age, but on the other hand, maybe you are more mature as an interpreter, maybe your approach to singing deepens.

Your real feelings are inside you.

I have stepped off the relationship scene to come to terms with myself. I have spent most of my adult life being someones girlfriend and now I am happy being single.

You can't second-guess baseball. You can't second-guess yourself.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with -- a man is what he makes of himself.

I just really love being in my pajamas.

I wrote a lot of 'Red Queen' wrapped in a blanket, cramped up while watching the snow come down.

In Chinese culture, it wouldn't occur to kids to question or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows and movies constantly score points with their snappy back talk. Typically, it's the parents who need to be taught a life lesson - by their children.

Going through something difficult in your life, music, for me, is always a friend and something that helps you to figure things out.

I have lost my mental faculties but am perfectly well.

Washington is a mean town where human sacrifice has been raised to an art form.

In 1965, when I was fourteen, I read my first adult novel; it was a historical novel about Katherine of Aragon, and I could not put it down. When I finished it, I had to find out the true facts behind the story and if people really carried on like that in those days. So I began to read proper history books, and found that they did!

One of the things that struck me about the 1870s, which we still haven't nearly addressed, is what to do about the male-female divide. One of the forbidden topics is when men own up to the omnivorousness of their sexual interest and how to square that with being in love with an individual woman.

Every major power always seeks to justify its action on moral grounds. Such behaviour is almost as old as the hills. The west has been a particularly vigorous exponent of this credo; and there is no reason to believe that China, for example, will be any different. But behind the moral rhetoric invariably lies interest and ideology.

Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable it is the moral principle individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.

I refused to do a lot on mobile Internet until around 2009. But because we didn't start early, it took us some time to figure out what's the important thing, what's the most relevant thing for Baidu.

A good resolution is like an old horse, which is often saddled but rarely ridden.

If I keep God first in my life, if I keep my family and friends as second, and then I keep my occupation third, that's when I've found success.

The toughest thing about the power of trust is that its very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.

I get a little freaked out when I'm around too many redheads. I only have about one or two red-haired friends, and when a bunch of us get together, I feel like there's going to be a fight that breaks out or something.

If you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough.

The more exposure people have to the realities of factory farming, the more we will see people rejecting it. It's already happening.

The art of avoiding extremes is an art that is drawn on the canvas of maturity and painted with the abstract strokes of many experiences.

Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia the most influential is the slippery slope once we allow doctors to kill patients we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die.