Robertson Davies Quotes

I'm not a good enough singer to pull off the effect.

But I was singing loud, and most singers weren't singing loud.

Don't ever take a dramatic lesson. They will try to put your voice in a dinner jacket, and people like their hominy and grits in everyday clothes.

I've always been singing. Since day one. I started doing musical theater and you have to sing in musical theater and so that's where I got most of my training. So singing on stage, you just inevitably, when you're around other vocal artists, you get better at singing.

My heart is closer to acting than singing. It's always been that way.

Being in front of all these people staring at you and it helps you to dig down and become more emotional and get lost in it as you're feeding on people's energy.

When I first started, I was much weaker of a singer because I wasn't used to singing so much. Now I've learned, when I'm singing on stage, not to go over. You can go over and mess yourself up. I used to do it all the time, wouldn't know how to preserve it for the next show.

Playing and singing at the same time is pretty cool, but sometimes it's difficult to know when you can just really let go a bit because you've got to get back to bloody microphone and sing some stuff.

You have to contort your body in a certain way to hit a low note. When you're on film, you can't. So you do, in a sense, get to hide behind your voice, which is nice.

I've lost a few notes on the top. But I've gained a little insight about what makes people comfortable when they're listening or watching a performance of mine. It usually has to do with singing something that isn't vocally too strenuous.

I feel like a lot of pop singers hurt themselves if they don't have the proper training.

I know I'm an opera singer, but we're actors, too.

I sing 'Nessun Dorma' when I warm up backstage.

I could probably use some tips from a vocal trainer or something about breathing, but we all know it's not about technical prowess.

I'm an intense singer, so I look like I need the toilet every time I hit a high-note.

When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.

It was really difficult to sing; nobody showed me how to do it. I remember early Screaming Trees shows in the '80s when I'd walk away with a pounding headache from trying to sing way out of my range.

It really isn't very glamorous to sing because you have to make all these funny faces to make it sound like the record. You really want to sound the best you can so you have to make all these disgusting faces.

Singing in front of people. It's like having your heart beat outside of you.

I would never want something I'm wearing or the way I'm dancing or something to overshadow what I'm doing. I'd rather grab people's attention with my voice.

I was so shy and so quiet, and the only time I had my own voice and I could really connect with people was when I was singing or on stage.

How can [actors] learn their lines and be honest in front of 30 people and all the lights? It makes me cry sometimes. I can't understand how they can be joking with me 30 seconds before, and 40 seconds later they're giving me all this incredible feeling.

I'm trying to write truthfully about life, and naturalism, or the way people normally talk in movies, is a convention. The way I write is about life and is quite truthful, and there is a kind of brutal side to the relationship, and to the feelings, that makes it somewhat painful, but I think it's a very intense portrait of the relationship of two people. And a bit about what people feel like when they're alone, because it all takes place in one day, and during the day, they spend a lot of time alone in their different - you get to imagine what their fantasy lives are like.

I always wanted to be in the world of entertainment. I just love the idea of an audience being happy with what I am doing. Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it.

I'm not a nervous person. I'm not afraid to be on TV. I'm only afraid when I write. When I'm at my desk I feel like most people would feel if they went on TV.