Top 26 Quotes & Sayings by Sarah Vaughan

You simply have to love show business to make the risk worthwhile.

I don't think I ever modeled myself after a singer. I've more or less copied the styles of horn-tooters right from the start.

What was the competition? Well, I remember this Puerto Rican who came out in a short skirt and a gun.

You have to have a little soul in your singing. The kind of soul that's in the spirituals. That's why I'd like to include spiritual material in the sets I do. It's a part of my life.

I guess the only trouble was that George was very slow in getting around to proposing. Several times, I almost proposed to him.

There are notes between notes, you know.

I just sing. I sing whatever I can.

When I sing a tune, the lyrics are important to me. Most of the standard lyrics I know well. And as soon as I hear an arrangement, I get ideas, kind of like blowing a horn. I guess I never sing a tune the same way twice.

I just quit in the third year of high school and started singing at amateur hours.

It sure is a nice feeling to know that people will remember you after you're gone, that you'll manage to be a little bit of history.

Horns always influenced me more than voices.

Good management has helped me find much of the success I've got.

Choir singing's a wonderful thing for what ails you. There's a lot of meaning in a hymn if you think about it when you're singing it.

When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice.

The night I won at the Apollo, I was only doing it for the $10.

I just get onstage and sing. I don't think about how I'm going to do it - it's too complicated.

I've always been a Democrat; it runs in my family.

I said to George, 'Why don't you manage me?' He looked at me, a little bit surprised. Then he replied, 'Sure, Sass, I'll manage you, but it would be even better if we managed each other.' The next morning, we got our marriage license at the court.

They always ask me the same questions. Where was I born? When did I start singing? Who have I worked with? I don't understand why they can't just talk to me without all that question bit.

Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.

I'm not heart-broken if I don't have a hit. But I guess a hit would help. It makes the money go up a bit.

I am not a special person. I am a regular person who does special things.

I don't feel like a big star.

There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.

My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.

I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer...I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues – just a right-out blues – but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music.