Natalie Cole Quotes

I thank my dad for leaving me such a wonderful, wonderful heritage.

There were so many groups that I had in college, but I was always the solo singer. But what made it so unusual back in the day was that I was a black girl playing with all these white musicians, and I was also singing rock music on top of it.

Las Vegas has the type of audience - and they haven't changed since my father's days - they're still boring and bored. And there's only that handful of artists that they really enjoy and know how to respond to.

I managed to survive the worst things any entertainer could possibly go through.

When I was old enough to walk home alone from school, I loved seeing our house from a distance. It sat on the corner of South Muirfield Road and West 4th Street and had this proud, majestic look. But I rarely went through the front door. The back was more dramatic.

If you don't shop smart, you get a little trendy.

I started saying, 'I don't want to be crazy anymore.' I need to make some changes. And the first thing I started doing was just got all the men out of my life, because that was a big problem for me. That was a crutch, if you will. You know, trying to define yourself through other people or men, in particular.

I think that I sound a lot better than Diana Ross.

Even when I had no money, I spent everything I had on clothes.

If you don't have dialysis, absolutely, you will die. Dialysis is actually keeping me alive.

People say I look younger than the music I'm doing just because the songs are older. Hopefully I can keep my youthful look!

I imagine there are a lot of people who will never be able to accept me because they feel I've let them down, but I am a different person, and most people have welcomed me back in that spirit.

Aretha Franklin does not like me.

I don't think that my parents even imagined that I would be exposed to drugs. In those days, for some reason, it was not talked about, just like sex was not talked about.

I had to make peace with my past because I can't change it.

Being my dad's daughter has allowed me to do a lot of things that maybe another artist might not be able to do or wouldn't be necessarily embraced doing.

What's really important? That I'm an individual, I guess. I am an individual - a strong one, too. I'm Natalie Cole. I gotta be me.

I couldn't breathe. I - I went into - literally, my kidneys stopped functioning. They stopped, you know, processing the fluid that was starting to build up in my body.

You shouldn't have regrets. I'd say instead that I've learned a lot of lessons. Yes, I could have handled some things better. But they've also made me who I am today.

We have to stop rewarding bad behavior.

God surrounded me with people of faith, people of strong faith, people of power, spiritual power, and I saw little miracles happen in their lives. By it happening in their lives, I started believing it could happen to me.

I'm the type of person who won't cancel a show even if I don't feel my best.

It's the same girl-who-has-everything story. You know, the one where she's insecure and scared and unhappy and has marriage problems and doesn't know how to handle stardom and screws up right and left and gets in with the wrong people and goes down the drain.

I was pretty bad. When I first was diagnosed with kidney failure, my function - the function of my kidney was less than 8 percent.

My first trip to Mexico was with my dad because of his Spanish records. That was back in 1958. I found a picture of me when I was eight dressed as a little senorita.

When I did 'Unforgettable,' it wasn't appropriate for us to take liberties with that music. There had to be kind of a fine line between what had made it so great and the fact that a woman was singing it. We changed some of the arrangements, but not too much.

The dialysis is to wash my blood, to keep my kidneys functioning.

I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies - George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra.

I like Babyface, but he keeps the good stuff for himself. If he's willing to give his good stuff to me, we'll talk. But it can't be any of his B-grade stuff.

I've always adored my father's music, but ever since I'd started singing, whether it was while I was still a student at the University of Massachusetts or professionally, I avoided Dad's material.

When I sang my father's songs in concert, that was all people wanted to hear. I was always asking myself, 'Can I measure up?'

I think people hear the warmth in my voice and the friendliness, and they think: 'Oh, she must be a very nice person'.

A lot of people want to donate a kidney, but they're not in a position to because they have health issues of their own, and a lot of people need them. That's why the list is long and it takes a long time.

I've always been an extremist. Some of us have very addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The recovery is a day-to-day process.

I think that it's going to be interesting to see where Beyonce's career goes.

Losing people is dark, but some things you just have to accept.

By the time I approached my forties, I had the self-assurance to approach all the genres I love so deeply: R & B, rock, jazz, and pop.

We are born with two kidneys and only need one to survive. Maybe God gave us the other one so that we could give it away.

I would never do an album with 10 songs like 'Jump Start' on it. I'll only go so far to please fans.

It's important to wallow and grieve when you have a health issue. I don't think you really get the best stuff out of life until you've had the worst stuff.

I was going to college to be a doctor.

I've always loved Spanish. I love my father's Spanish records.

I felt that if I'm serious about acting, I would like people to see me as an actress. It's less of a stretch if I'm singing, unless I'm playing a character who sings.

My father was a pioneer in so many ways. He was fearless, and I think that I kind of picked that up from him as well.

I didn't realize I was still grieving for my father at 30-something.

I look 10 years younger than I am. Unfortunately, sometimes I act like I'm 10 years old.

When you have put all your faith in man and continue to be disappointed, don't you hope there is something out of there that is not of human element?

The house where I grew up in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles was like a dream - even though my family faced threats after my father bought it in August 1948.

My friend was on dialysis for six years before he got a new kidney. I was on dialysis for eight months. I'm almost not even the typical person who has kidney failure.

As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids.

One thing that stays the same is my passion for music. Other than that, I've become more dedicated. I think that I really work much harder than I ever did when I first started at my craft; I'm more dedicated, and I have become a perfectionist.

Life is such a gift, I just say thank you all day.

I'm a born-again Christian. I was raised Episcopalian - I've always been of a Christian faith, but I became much more active in it when I married my first husband, Marvin. I changed from Episcopalian to Baptist.

There are some great human beings out there. That's all I can say.

God was going to be to me the father that I never had, the father that I didn't have enough of, enough time with.

I'm just really, really thankful. I'm thankful to the doctors; I'm thankful to the family that donated the kidney.

We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.

I think that talented people really do have insecurities, and that is one of the things that kind of motivates them, because that's one thing they know they're good at. And when they're up on that stage, you can do no wrong. The audience is yours; they're there to see you.

Like my father, I don't want to see anyone mistreated, anything like that. I'm very racial-conscious because my father had a lot of, you know, challenges in the area of race. I'm very sensitive to that kind of issue.

One of these days, I'd like to put together a revue of all my music, which would probably turn into a marathon. There's a couple of hit songs from almost every phase of my career. At the same time, visually, if you don't handle it properly, it could be a cacophony of craziness, because there's just so many different kinds of music.

I get hugs all the time from strangers. I do believe that people can feel your persona when you perform live, but it is one of the nicest things if you can translate that on your records.

When you make your living as a singer, you have to go where the gigs are.

I never got to make that transition from little girl to young woman ... and that really screws you up.

I think it just came to a point where I made a decision to do better with my life and health. And that is only by God's grace because there are no guarantees.

I have been on dialysis in Istanbul, Milan, Indonesia, Manila, London. It's - it's amazing.