“I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a...” — Jessye Norman Quote

“I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.”

“I sing in languages that I speak. So when I'm singing a Schubert song, I know precisely what every word means and, you know, when it was composed and who was the poet and all of that and whether Strauss or Wagner or French Belioz, Duparc or Debussy or whatever.”

“Felixstowe, the United Kingdom's largest port, stops work only for Christmas Day and for crane-toppling Force 9 gales.”

“Every Christmas now for years, I have found myself wondering about the point of the celebration. As the holiday has become more ecumenical and secular, it has lost much of the magic that I remember so fondly from childhood.”

“Celebrating Christmas without subscribing to Christianity is like watching the Super Bowl without watching a regular season game. Some people watch the Super Bowl for the commercials; others watch it for the halftime show.”