Idina Menzel Quotes

I love my husband very much. I knew it was real true love because I felt like I could be myself around that person. Your true, true innermost authentic self, the stuff you don't let anyone else see, if you can be that way with that person, I think that that's real love.

As much as I appreciate people putting me in the category of these very acrobatic belters, I feel like my strength is my ... interpretation and my truthfulness with songs, and I don't want young people to think it's all about the high notes that they have to hit.

I pretty much have no life outside of the theatre. I go home every night, and I put the TV on, and I veg out and order food.

Everything's always about being homogenized and following in a group. The people who stand out always have the most problems.

The sky in Texas is the most amazing sky in the whole country, I think, like you can see more sky in Texas than you can see anywhere else in the world.

I think that if you're doing a new musical, you want to have the opportunity to experiment and try things without the whole city of critics looking over your shoulder.

I feel like I was born to do this ... I started working professionally as soon as I could, doing weddings and things like that in high school, while everyone else was having keg parties. I just felt destined to do it and really committed and driven; it was something that just felt right all my life.

Things happen for a reason, and in their own time.

I always like to sing barefoot, but when I first started doing these dates with the symphonies, I of course thought I should clean up my act, being a Jewish girl from Long Island with a little bit of a trucker mouth. So I wore a gown and some high heels.

I'm more comfortable revealing myself than hiding behind metaphors. I respond to artists who reveal something of themselves.

I think I hid my singing talent from a lot of my friends at school because I didn't want to alienate anyone. If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off, when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique.

I'm a decent tennis player. Good backhand.

Everybody thinks it's going to be so glamorous, so cool, you're on 'Glee,' you know, a hit show or whatever.

There has to be a balance between power and vulnerability. That's something I feel I have in my own life, something I struggle with and - on a good day - like about myself.

My story is so boring: Long Island Jewish parents take their daughters to Broadway.

The first album I ever owned was 'A Star is Born.'

As I get older, I realize all I've done is sing and act and hone those skills.

After 'Rent,' I tried to make a record, and it didn't work out, and it was the Broadway community that welcomed me back. It's where I feel the most understood, most at home.

I have a wide spectrum, a wide demographic. I have the young girls, I have the gay community, I have many regular theatergoers. I do feel a tremendous responsibility and pride to be a role model for some of these young people.

They're always so serious, the orchestras, you know? It's always a fun contrast of that song and the genre of music. And me.

I will never leave the theater. My heart is there, and I love being on stage 8 times a week.

Growing up I studied classically and did lots of shows in school.

It's hard to absorb and to allow all that attention and accolades for 'Rent' because the rest of the country doesn't know who we are. Once I walk out of the door of 'Rent,' and I'm on the subway, it doesn't matter. It's an exaggerated sense of fame.

I've met so many of my idols, but the one person that has eluded me is Bono. But because he's done 'Spider-Man,' I keep thinking maybe, through a Broadway connection, somehow our paths will eventually merge.

I was once an extra in a Bruce Springsteen video where they did a live performance video at Tramps. I forget the name of the song.

My favorite thing of all time is a New York City weekend when there's a blizzard. Everything gets really quiet, and everyone goes to the movies and the park.

The truth is I love musical theater and always have.

I'm constantly trying to work on the person that I am and work on my shortcomings, and I guess I want people to know that it's ok to be a work in progress, as long as you keep trying to figure it out. But that search and that discovery is what makes life kind of rich, and it's what makes life rich ... period.

I used to take 40 minutes to warm up before going on stage. If you want to spend time with your child as well as having a career, you have to get up there even if your head's a mess. It's made me more relaxed, and I'm having some of my best shows.

I always use my husband's cocoa butter stuff. He has amazing skin!

The cool thing is that, unlike film, the theatre roles for women get better and better as you get older.

The cold never bothered me anyway.

The more success you get, you start to be harder on yourself or more afraid of the looking glass. You have to learn to build a thicker skin because people are paying more attention.

The truth is I love musical theatre and always have.

I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.

It's been a dream of mine to run my own summer camp. I went to one as a kid, and I put on productions, and got lots of confidence.

I just enjoy being onstage and relating to the audience.

Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.

For singers, I believe we can sing in a lot of keys. I know I have this big range, but the point is to find a key that emotionally connects people.

I think as women, the smarter and more powerful we are, the more it can be threatening and alienating to other people, more than with men. That's something we need to support each other with.

The most successful people are so original.

You get to relive your childhood when you have a baby and you see these toys and these books you read when you were little - the innocence that you are able to maintain because you have to find that again in order to connect with your child keeps you in a special state of mind.

I have the potential to be very strong and powerful, sometimes angry, sometimes passionate. I also can be shy and withhold that because I am afraid. I don't want to freak anybody out with my passion ... So I struggle with that all the time.

I'm a mom - I'm lucky if I get to shower in the morning. Luckily, nail polish stays on my toes. I've been so bad on the upkeep, though.

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.

Along with enough sleep and taking proper supplements, I steam - in my steam shower. I find it's very healing, more than just your typical 'tea and honey.'

When I lived in London when I did 'Wicked' there, everyone told me the audiences might be much more reserved, but I found it was completely the opposite. They jumped to their feet sooner, even more enthusiastically than the New York audiences did, and they were just as warm and as enthusiastic and supportive as New York.

I can sing 'Happy Birthday' to you in twelve different places, but one of them is going to make you feel a certain thing, maybe it's a vulnerability, maybe an innocence, maybe another way is sexy and soulful or bluesy whatever it is, but with singers, exploring keys, I think, is important.

'Frozen' definitely isn't about a man, but about the relationship between two sisters. At different times in our lives we find ourselves either more connected to or disconnected from the people in our family, and I think audiences will really be able to relate to that.

A lot of my fans are young and hip and enjoy my pop album and know the lyrics to those songs as well, which is a real compliment to me.

I find that, maybe because I'm also a singer, I hear music in characters all the time, even if they don't sing. I hear what affects me in my heart.

My husband and I grew up with parents who supported our passion, and we're grateful to them for that. It really helps you find your identity when you're younger. It helps you become a really well-rounded person, the more you can show from different perspectives. The arts show us empathy, which is so important.

The past is in the past

Usually I'm pretty myopic. It's hard for me to multi-task, so to speak. If I'm in a show and I'm creating a character, I'm just completely into that. It's really hard for me to do anything else like write music. I have to sort of shut down different sides of my head and just focus.

I always like to sing barefoot.

I sing in many different colors and, hopefully, they add up to a great performance that, after you leave the theater, makes you feel like I've really shared something of myself.

Barbra Streisand, for one, is one of my idols. I've listened to her since I was a little kid - the first album I ever bought was 'A Star is Born' with Kris Kristofferson.

Nerves are good. They keep you alive.

I tend to have a pattern of playing misunderstood characters.

Motherhood has helped me to stop overanalyzing things. It's been liberating because I used to be somewhat neurotic. I attribute that to having something bigger than myself.

I'm smart enough to know to work with smart people.

I definitely use my music to kind of alleviate my stress and get me through specific moments in time where I'm just being really tough on myself.

People have these incredible expectations. So instead of being inspired by, say, Joni Mitchell's music, I look at it and say to myself, 'I'm going to quit - why would I think of writing or performing after listening to that?'

I would love to work with Matt Damon.

That's what I love about songwriting - that you can write something about your own experiences and think it's completely specific to you, and then people can take away a completely different meaning for themselves. I really love that. I think you've been successful at writing a song when it has a larger life than yourself.

The one who tried too hard, the outsider, the oddball. Yeah, that was me.

I keep saying, the older I get, the younger my audience gets. Because 'Wicked' and 'Rent' and 'Glee,' each one was a young audience, so it's a great thing to have, so then you know that as they get older and have kids, they'll maybe still buy tickets to my shows when I'm 80 and in Vegas!

I used to be someone that needed nine hours of sleep; otherwise, I didn't think I was going to sound good when I sang, and I was very disciplined and anal about my preparation. When you become a parent, there just isn't that time, you know?

It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small, and the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all.