Quotes by Maria Callas

• It's a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven't.
• Love is so much better when you're not married.
• On stage, I am in the dark.
• That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends.
• There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age. Children should have a wonderful childhood. They should not be given too much responsibility.
• When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point.
• When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping.
• You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there.
• Good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends.
• I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity.
• Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules.
• An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
• I was always too mature for my age - and not very happy. I had no young friends. I wish I could go back to those days. If I could only live it all again, how I would play and enjoy other girls. What a fool I was.
• I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage.
• I don't need the money, dear. I work for art.
• I don't know what happens to me on stage. Something else seems to take over.
• I cannot switch my voice. My voice is not like an elevator going up and down.
• I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not the devil either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged.
• First I lost my voice, then I lost my figure and then I lost Onassis.