Explore Quotes by Johnny Mathis

I've lost a few notes on the top. But I've gained a little insight about what makes people comfortable when they're listening or watching a performance of mine. It usually has to do with singing something that isn't vocally too strenuous.

As long as those things are on vinyl or tape or what have you, the record companies are going to release them someday.

No, I don't regret my decision at all, especially after I started this music career. My eyes were as big as saucers.

The voice muscle doesn't last forever. I have a lot of friends who are classical and opera singers. My friend Beverly Sills stopped singing in her 50s, so I'm careful with mine. But I'll keep going as long as it lets me.

I got an invitation to go to the Olympic trials. And in the same week, I got a telegram from a... big executive at Columbia Records.

I believe it was Nat King Cole that my dad took me to see, and we were sitting in the dressing room, and I blurted out to him, 'Why didn't you sing this?' Referring to whatever song I had wanted to hear, and he told me he was tired of singing it.

I started off as a kid singing with my dad. My dad was my best pal. But he had seven kids, and I was the only one who was kind of interested in what he was playing and singing at the piano. And he was not only my dad, but he was my best pal, and I was interested in doing whatever he wanted to.

I thought I sounded a little like Eartha Kitt for a long time, and I didn't like it.

It's always nice to hear people say, 'You sound the same,' when I know I don't.

The fact that I'm not a good musician - I throw it around, tell people that - it doesn't matter that much. It only matters to me, because I idolized good musicians. I absolutely worshiped them.

There are situations when, in your singing, in your interpretation of songs, for instance, when you want a straight tone. And I have to work really hard at getting a straight tone... That's sort of like if you have curly hair, you have curly hair.

Sure, I've thought about retiring, but in my mind, if you can't sing the song anymore, change the song and sing a different one!

For me, hearing my voice is sometimes a little nauseating, especially at Christmas.

The thing that means most to me is the joy that my mom and my dad got because of my career... They raised seven children on domestic wages, in a city like San Francisco, and did nothing but work, work, work.

I decided right away that whomever was going to advise me had to be fundamentally interested in music. This protected me from the skullduggery common to the music industry then and that still exists today. Of course, using this method meant that some things we didn't know and just had to learn how to do it together.

I think it's important to cultivate as many people as you can to see which ones you jive with. And it makes you happy. If one dies, you have another one. So living is a process that you have to do by yourself, and if you can learn a few little goodies along the way that might make it easier for you, so much the better.

People are stubborn about what they perceive to be the right thing or the wrong thing, and it takes a long time to filter this human condition. There's a waiting period until people catch up. But if you have patience - which it takes when someone thinks differently from you - everybody always catches up. That patience is a wonderful virtue.

My mom loved my Christmas music, so I did an awful lot of it!

It's very much like opera singers. They do the same thing. The first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, the thing they think about is their voice and how to take care of it.

The world changes. The world is completely different now from when I was growing up. Back then, you didn't say things like they say now, out loud, about race and things. But that's just progress. When are we going to find out that we're all the same - we're all absolutely, without a doubt, the same?

Christmas is never going to go away, and it's always going to be there. And there's always room for one more Christmas song, I think.