Nellie Melba Quotes

• The first rule in opera is the first rule in life: see to everything yourself

  Nellie Melba

  Art, Opera, Firsts

  1925 Melodies and Memories.

  51 Copy quote

• Music is not written in red, white and blue. It is written in the heart's blood of the composer.

  Nellie Melba

  Art, Blue, Blood

  21 Copy quote

• There are two things I like stiff and one of them's jelly.

  Nellie Melba

  Two, Jelly, Absurdity

  12 Copy quote

• You won’t be famous until people start saying the worst things they can about you. Don’t worry! It’s a good sign!

  Nellie Melba

  People, Worry, Worst

  10 Copy quote

• The eternal task of song can never be finished in a single lifetime. That is the beauty and fascination of the art. Once you begin to phrase finely, you will feel more joy in the beautiful finish of a beautiful phrase than that caused by the loudest applause of an immense audience. The latter excites for a moment; the former endures forever.

  Nellie Melba

  Beautiful, Song, Art

  14 Copy quote

• If I'd been a housemaid I'd have been the best in Australia - I couldn't help it. It's got to be perfection for me.

  Nellie Melba

  Art, Women, Australia

  Said to the conductor Fritz Hart. Quoted in John Thompson On Lips of LivingMen (1962).

  15 Copy quote

• If you wish to understand me at all (and to write an autobiography is only to open a window into one's heart) you must understand first and foremost, that I am an Australian.

  Nellie Melba

  Writing, Heart, Australia

  1925 Melodies and Memories, ch.1.

  15 Copy quote

• What are we singers but the silver-voiced messengers of the poet and the musician?

  Nellie Melba

  Art, Musician, Singers

  11 Copy quote

• One of the drawbacks of Fame is that one can never escape from it.

  Nellie Melba

  Art, Women, Fame

  8 Copy quote

• Always sing below your potential.

  Nellie Melba

  8 Copy quote

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