Beverly Sills Quotes

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.

I’m not happy, I’m cheerful. There’s a difference. A happy woman has no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to deal with them. —Beverly Sills

Any excess in life is a substitute for something that's missing.

I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” BEVERLY SILLS

500In Smart Girls, Gifted Women, Barbara Kerr explores the common experiences of girls who grew into strong women. She studied the adolescent years of Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, Georgia O’Keeffe, Maya Angelou and Beverly Sills, and she found that they had in common time by themselves, the ability to fall in love with an idea, a refusal to acknowledge gender limitations and what she called “protective coating.” None of them were popular as adolescents and most stayed separate from their peers, not by choice, but because they were rejected. Ironically, this very rejection gave them a protected space in which they could develop their uniqueness. Many strong girls have similar stories: They were socially isolated and lonely in adolescence. Smart girls are often the girls most rejected by peers. Their strength is a threat and they are punished for being different. Girls who are unattractive or who don’t worry about their appearance are scorned. This isolation is often a blessing because it allows girls to develop a strong sense of self. Girls who are isolated emerge from adolescence more independent and self- sufficient than girls who have been accepted by others.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going,” he’d emphasized, quoting one of his favorite Beverly Sills lines.

Bowes collected many honorary titles in his life: his real title, “major,” was often suspected of being a trump-up, but it was genuine enough—he had held that rank in the U.S. Army Reserve during World War I. In retrospect, the show produced few stars of the first magnitude (Beverly Sills, Frank Sinatra, and Robert Merrill were the best-known Amateur Hour winners). “To be sure, minor talents have been discovered,” Radio Guide conceded. “But even the best half-dozen performers who have moved up in the entertainment world through the Amateur Hour still are not averaging more than $100 a week. Compare this figure with Major Bowes’ own income of something like $40,000 a week, and compare that with the $40–60 earned by players in his units. It’s something to think about.