Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Diana Ross - Page 2

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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

I am in prayer for his kids and the family.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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