Linda Ronstadt Quotes

The thing you have to be prepared for is that other people don't always dream your dream.

The essential elements of singing are voice, musicianship, and story. It is the rare artist that has all three in abundance.

The dream world of sleep and the dream world of music are not far apart. I often catch glimpses of one as I pass through a door to the other, like encountering a neighbor in the hallway going into the apartment next to one’s own. In the recording studio, I would often lie down to nap and wake up with harmony parts fully formed in my mind, ready to be recorded. I think of music as dreaming in sound.

The only reason to be with somebody is that they make you a better person and you make them a better person.

Art is for healing ourselves, and everybody needs their own personal art to heal up their problems.

Someone once asked me why people sing. I answered that they sing for many of the same reasons the birds sing. They sing for a mate, to claim their territory, or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive in the midst of a beautiful day. Perhaps more than the birds do, humans hold a grudge. They sing to complain of how grievously they have been wronged, and how to avoid it in the future. They sing to help themselves execute a job of work. They sing so the subsequent generations won’t forget what the current generation endured, or dreamed, or delighted in.

What I think is the universal, wonderful thing about music, is that it's very inclusive.

Everywhere you go, there's a soundtrack. You can't really quite hear it. It's just a little out of the range of hearing.

Ninety-nine percent of singing is listening and hearing, and so then 1 percent of it is singing.

I feel sorry for a culture that depends too much on delegating its musical expression to professionals. It is fine to have heroes, but we should do our own singing first, even if it is never heard beyond the shower curtain.

In the United States, we spend millions of dollars on sports because it promotes teamwork, discipline, and the experience of learning to make great progress in small increments. Learning to play music does all this and more.

When the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby, it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky.

I was never bored because I always had a book. So I had a doorway into another world or another universe. It was great.

In committing to artistic growth, you have to refine your skills to support your instincts.

I thought everybody could sing, because everybody in my family could.

The greatest sin is carelessness.

People don't realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves....I worry that some people are entertained by the idea of this war. They don't know anything about the Iraqis, but they're angry and frustrated in their own lives. It's like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers.

I think there's mind in nature. There's a power in nature, and there's a universal power that you'd better not ignore.

Rampant eclecticism is my middle name.

I love sex as much as I love music, and I think it's as hard to do.

Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight.

I grew up singing Mexican music, and that's based on indigenous Mexican rhythms. Mexican music also has an overlay of West African music, based on huapango drums, and it's kind of like a 6/8 time signature, but it really is a very syncopated 6/8. And that's how I attack vocals.

This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know.

Mainly, when I ran into Emmylou Harris, that was it, you know? We could finish each other's sentences musically, and personally, too. We have a very shared, similar sensibility. And that was a friendship that really opened up a tremendous number of musical doors for me.

I think musicians are always supportive of each other because they want the groove to keep going on. They just basically want to play music.