As far as I was concerned the important thing was that the music was getting the attention as well as me so it was always a great way to get more of the public to connect with classical music, and opera particularly.

I would just like to say that opera is no longer about fat people in breastplates shattering wine glasses.

The musical heritage of Yorkshire is deep and wide.

I'm engaging my diaphragm as I'm speaking to you right now.

And woven into the fabric of this harsh existence was music.

There are a lot of unseen elements to having a successful singing career.

I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.

As far as I was concerned the important thing was that the music was getting the attention as well as me so it was always a great way to get more of the public to connect with classical music, and opera particularly.

I don't just come from a musical family, but from a musical community.

I wouldn't want to criticise someone like Charlotte Church because she has done fantastically well, but personally I've always cared about the long term.

That was when I realised that music is the most profound, magical form of communication there is.

One of the problems that we face through the media attention that these artists receive is that there has been an awful lot of talk about opera and classical music being elite and being for an elitist group.

I do a lot of vocal hygiene.

Opera is credible drama now, and it costs less than going to a football match. What have you got to lose?

I saw The Sound of Music when I was 10 and thought that it was the most beautiful singing I had ever heard.

To tell you the truth, I never listen to opera at home.

I'm very pro presenting the best music I can to the widest audience possible.

I don't think I have ever met a single person who isn't moved by music of some kind.

Nobody inspired me more than Julie Andrews, who is a classically trained soprano herself.

What people really should be able to be confident in is that the standards of music- making that classically trained musicians present is elite, it is the best and all of us as artists should be committed to that.

It worries me that young singers think you can shortcut the training and go straight to fame and fortune, and programmes like Pop Idol have encouraged that.

I do hope that our spring will be starting shortly and we will all be able to enjoy some sunshine again.

Singing is an arduous business and it needs sacrifices.

Music is there to access those dark emotional corners that we don't normally get too close to.

The bronze powder business, however, no longer required my personal attention, and was well managed by those I had chosen as the guardians of a secret, which was long and honourably kept.

The kinds of shows that seem to work now, the comedy shows, are those which require very little attention. They're superficial and I like articulate comedy.

The constant attention is what is so difficult.

As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet.

Anytime you have a difficult encounter with your child, there is a good chance that at least one of these factors is bringing out the worst in him or her: transitions, time pressure, competition for your attention, conflicting objectives.

I think it would have been a lot better for him to say, I did it and I'm sorry, McGwire was never one to show a lot of emotion on the field, not a player who sought attention and craved to be thought of as a nice guy.

I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.

After some minor pieces of theoretical study that I worked on, a student in my statistical mechanics class brought to my attention a problem in polyelectrolytes.

I don't want to come off like the jealous brother who wasn't getting the attention, but it was like no one was really into me anyway. I wasn't really a priority.

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.

There's a lot of other movies I like, but I don't even pay attention to directors to tell you the truth.

The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.

The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real.

The nation did not begin to realize the extraordinary possibilities of the vast Western territory until its attention was thus suddenly and definitely concentrated on the Pacific by the annual addition of over fifty million dollars to the circulating medium.

Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.

I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character, I don't look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don't think of them as like Charlize Theron films.

They cannot count on the press and they cannot count on Congressional committees to bring the problems of the scientific community to their own attention, or to police the scientific community.

The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.

For the past several years, the Meth Caucus has worked to engage the Office of National Drug Control Policy on this issue. We have tried to get their attention that meth requires a strong, comprehensive Federal policy.

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?

I suppose that I was a kind of consultant for taste. Is it good taste? Or bad taste? I had an attention to detail, to what would tell best the story. Because many people get excited about the work and drift off from the story.

Terrorism is in good part an effective government propaganda; it serves to deflect attention from governmental abuse toward a mostly imagined, highly dangerous outside enemy.

If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.