Diana ross quotes

I spend too much money on my sets and my gowns. I think the presentation is important. I don't think people want to see the old show all the time.

Most people are so hard to please that if they met God, they'd probably say yes, she's great, but.

I lived on the north side of Detroit. Right down the street from me there was a young man by the name of Smokey Robinson. I was very proud to live down the street from him because he was our only celebrity in town. He was singing with the Miracles.

If I'm with a man I'm soft and buttery.

I'm really lucky, I have my performing career so I can continue to do personal appearances. Most actors have to do a film. But I thought I would wait until I found something I really liked.A lot of my friends feel that I'm wrong to wait. They say I should have done My Bodyguard, but I don't think so. I think I've been right.

Either black people end up being the best in sports, or else it's show business. You know, we all got rhythm.

I don't know what my life would have been like if I'd never gotten into show business.

I just appreciate still having the longevity that I've had in my career.

Do you know where you going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? Where are you going to? Do you know?

I learned something from that. If someone asks me something that I really don't want to do, I say no. I have to trust that. And I'm not afraid to talk money.

I don't judge people by their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, so I find it really hard to identify someone by saying that they're a gay person or a black person or a Jewish person.

My travels led me to where I am today. Sometimes these steps have felt painful, difficult, but led me to greater happiness and opportunities.

I just think Josephine Baker life story needs to be done. I think she was an extraordinary woman. To see someone who was basically a showgirl have the kind of lifestyle she had was extraordinary. I really think she made her own lifestyle.

What's important for me is to give my daughters a well-rounded education and a mixture of people in their lives. They'll make their own choices. I think they would be good in show business.

If I have someone who believes in me, I can move mountains.

I don't think getting in and out of a limousine has anything to do with being an icon.

It's easier for me to sit with the producers and the writers and I give them my feelings and my thoughts and what I think I feel like singing about and then they go away and write it.

It takes a long time to get to be a diva. I mean, you gotta work at it.

It seems like I don't have a lot of time for all the things I need to do. I'm spreading myself fairly thin. I have responsibilities to my children. I have a big staff that works for me. And when you have a staff, and I'm sure you know this, you're always concerned with everybody's life all the time.

I don't have to sit around and wait for the next movie to come along, I can go out and sing.

When I'm working I actually forget to eat. I don't eat sweets because I don't care about them. I have no real secrets. I just realize that as I get older I should stay strong so I exercise more.

People can take your name and write a book about you and they make money off of it. How is the public supposed to know you're not authorizing that book? As soon as you make a big stink about it it only makes the book sell more.

I use Jimmy Galanos gowns for real special occasions and things - television, special occasions where I know I'm being filmed. But I never really wear his gowns on stage. My stage gowns are more costumey. There's different levels of things that I wear.I would never wear my stage gowns to a party.

I can be a better me than anyone can.

I look forward to the future - and going into the studio to make new music.

So every time I make a new circuit, a new time around, then I change the show. You can't change the songs; people still want to hear "Lady Sings the Blues" and they still want to hear some of the oldies.

A reporter once asked me if I ever cried. I wonder if people think I'm just as hard as a rock and have no emotions at all.

It's not fair that our name can be used in any newspaper, any article connected with anything, and we can't really fight about it. It's like any newspaper that might take a picture of you, bad or good, and sometimes they're awful pictures, and they can use them without your approval and you can't do anything about it.

My life has often been described as 'from rags to riches' but in fact, the Ross's were never raggedy.

Discipline is a necessary tool to help you get what you want in life. It forces you to stay on center and to move away from the things that are not necessary.

They tell me that it will be hard to find a man strong enough to love my own strength and independence, and not worry about being Mr. Diana Ross, but I disagree. I know absolutely that that man is somewhere out there.

I have such memories; I keep thinking about all the people I worked with. I was in the recording studio and I was talking to one of the engineers who is 24 and they don't know these people. They just absolutely don't know the people and it just tickles me. I don't feel like I've grown up.

Icon. What is an icon? When someone is iconic it means they have established a certain kind of legacy possibly, and I think it does come with time. It's something in the arts, I feel. Maybe not, maybe it doesn't have to be in the arts exactly. I'm not really sure. But I don't think you are born an icon.

I have a lust for life.

Hair has always been important.

I have three girls, and I say the same thing to them. I'm not involved in their careers because I've learned that it's important for them to stand on their own two feet. They'll feel better and prouder of themselves if they do.

The first time I heard a Billie Holiday record, I thought, 'What's so great about Billie Holiday?'

I always wanted to be a fashion designer and I learned costume illustration in high school. That was an incredible high school. It was more like a college. I'm moving more in that direction, just kind of merchandising my name.

My problem is that people have been writing books about me.A lot of things that people write about you are incorrect, but you don't fight about it.

I don't know what I feel about wearing my furs anymore. I worked so hard to have a fur coat, and I don't want to wear it anymore because I'm so wrapped up in the animals. I have real deep thoughts about it because I care about the world and nature.

So I'm not worried about the emotions I carry with me, because I'm happy that I have them; I think it's good for the work I do. The emotions that are not healthy are the ones you hold inside, like anger.

You know, you do need mentors, but in the end, you really just need to believe in yourself.

I want to live in Paris for a couple of years. I'm dying to do the Josephine Baker story. I really want to be there and do it. It's certainly my intention to do it.

I really think I want to live in a lot of places.I don't want possessions to hold me down.

I'd traveled a lot, was going temporarily insane and became very successful, but there was no one to take that all home to.

I was brought up in this part of Detroit that they used to call the ghetto.

Take a little time out of your busy day to give encouragement to someone who's lost their way.

I even thought of adopting a child as a single mother.

Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.

I've never been damaged or hurt by press. It's just that I think it's unfair to use your name in media.

I listen to most everything that's out there because I need to stay aware of what's happening in the industry.

I'm a parent, and I try to take care of my health and keep my life in order. In the last few years I've really had to decide what's important to me, and it seems to me that my family and my health are top on the list. And those have nothing to do with show business.

If I do an interview, then I take full responsibility. I figure I'm not going to talk to anyone that I think is unethical anyway.

I'm crazy about Diane Von Furstenberg. It's a relationship that's very different; I don't see Diane a lot. So when I saw the article in New York magazine she looked so beautiful and it was talking about her work, too. She set up the interview and it was happening. That's different than someone writing a book about you who you've never met.

I really don't think that Detroit was any different than New York of Boston or Philadelphia. Kids always wanted to listen to music outside because that's where they hung out with their friends.

I want an autobiography without revealing any personal information.

I would like to enjoy my life a little bit more so I can really have more fun, but my work is my fun.

For some reason, my main movie, Lady Sings the Blues, to me really isn't me. I really can let go of Diana Ross when I see the movie. I'm really objective when I'm watching it. I liked that movie so much. That movie was like magic so that when I'm looking at it I'm really not seeing myself, I'm seeing the actress. I'm seeing another person, not the me of me.

My family called me a wiggle tail because I was a little skinny, wiry kid full of energy.

You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.

With the Supremes I made so much money so fast all I wanted to do was buy clothes and pretty things. Now I'm comfortable with money and it's comfortable with me.

I think a responsibility comes with notoriety, but I never think of it as power. It's more like something you hold, like grains of sand. If you keep your hand closed, you can have it and possess it, but if you open your fingers in any way, you can lose it just as quickly.

I don't care about vacations. I go away and I come back real quick because I like my work. I really like my work to consume me.

I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart.

All my gowns have trains on them. I make a train that goes on forever. I love long trains and then I stand there and twirl around and wrap myself up in it.

I don't like to have too many makeup artists around, so I always like to do my own.

It tickles me, my daughter said that to me. She said, "Mommie, why is it that every time they say your name they put your age right behind it?"

I really, deeply believe that dreams do come true. Often, they might not come when you want them. They come in their own time.

It has always been, and still is, my intention to build a playground in Central Park.

My name, Diana Ross, is my name and nobody should be able to use that for exploitative purposes but me.

My children come first and the career comes in around that.

I want to go Africa. I want to go to China. There are some places I want to go not to work, but to really explore and to see for my own education.

Being a parent is very important to me.

One thing you cannot control is nature.

I am in prayer for his kids and the family.

I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.

I jog and I roller-skate. I dance - that's the best exercise.

Criticism, even when you try to ignore it, can hurt. I have cried over many articles written about me, but I move on and I don't hold on to that.

I think that if my voice for some reason changes - because your voice does change - then it's time for me not to sing.

The only recording studio was in Motown - it was called Tamla/Motown at that time and we used to audition there because Smokey Robinson was at that studio and Berry Gordy was the president. I remember asking Smokey to listen to my group and he did. For the first couple of years we were just singing background. We used to back up Marvin Gaye; Mary Wells was there then, Marv Johnson, the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Junior Walker and the All-Stars.

If we hold on together I know our dreams will never die Dreams see us through to forever Where clouds roll by For you and I

You can have a lot of New York and still see what's going on in the rest of the world, I think - like in China.

You can always tell where Diana Ross has been by the hair that's left behind!

I keep a great organiser, I try to keep my priorities in the right place.

I have never gotten into the label thing.

All of a sudden I feel more womanly, I feel like I got a figure. I was always really straight up and down, the skinny one in the middle, like that poster at Elaine's of the Supremes at Lincoln Center - it was done by Joe Eula. To me that's really a reflection of the way I was. I was just like a bean pole. Now I'm getting a few curves and I like it.

I know that my fans want to know who I'm sleeping with, but it's really none of their business.

I try to choose the songs that really are basically coming from my heart. I think that through the songs that I select, people know what's going on in my life.

My father worked hard, but we were still very poor; and I didn't want anybody arguing about money, so I became the entertainer, the one who wanted everyone to be happy. I didn't want there to be any problems.

I majored in fashion design in school, and I have always wanted to design my own line of clothing, jewelry, and stuff like that; so this was just a step for me in that direction.