Quotes : Celine Dion : on

Life : 'I prefer to live one day, one month and one year at a time. When I want to do something, I do it.'

Looks : 'I don't think I'm super beautiful but I'm not terrible either. My strongest phyisical attributes are my eyes. But people also say I have beautiful legs.'

Beauty : 'I want to be beautiful, I want to grow old in a beautiful way, I want to be a woman in every sense of the word.'

Children : 'I'm not going to try and beat my parents and have fifteen kids, but I would love to have children.'

Parenting : 'I don't want to deprive myself of singing and I would like to have children. I grew up with parents who performed in shows. I slept in banquet halls in restaurants. I am not worse off for this. My child will grow with me, following me everywhere, getting used to my rhythm of life.'

Under Pressure : 'I think I am good at delivering the goods under pressure. "I can take it," as they say. When the situation is critical, I think I have proven that they can have confidencde in me and rely on me.'

Stage : 'I perceive the world of stage like a universe that requires discipline and resourcefulness.'
'All I can say is that I sing with sincerity and with all my heart. In shows, for example, my only goal is to establish a kind of communion with the audience and to share with them the emotions that I have. For me, singing is this above all and, before everything else.'

Love : 'I am a romantic - romantic dinners in front of the fireplace - no champagne because I don't drink - but the dream gets me carried away in a state of lightheadedness.'

Singing : 'When I am in full possession of all my means, singing for me is a fantastic exercise - even magical. When I'm not in my best form vocally my handicap incites me to be too careful and think about my way of singing, in brief, to calculate everything. And this is a reality which I have enormous difficulty in dealing with. I detest this because it takes away my spontaneity ... the "feeling" that you don't calculate.'

Tenderness : 'Once the most fulfilling moments were on stage. But now, the peak moments are much more intimate - the last seconds of the day when Rene turns off the TV and I curl up against his back. No noise. Darkness. Hearing his breathing. When you'e in love with someone, it makes you go wild. If you put your head on his back, you can hear his heart.'

Ever Lasting Life : 'I admit that I would love if one day there are posters of me in black and white displayed a little everywhere, like MarilynEese legends will never di I know that I am not a legend, but in all honesty, I would like that after I die, I could still live on ... that there is never an end.'

Fame : 'I try to always give the maximum of my potential and I look to constantly surpass myself, to better my preceding performance. From the age of twelve I decided to invest myself in this career and it doesn't matter what type of obstacles that I had to overcome and the efforts that I've had to deploy. It's a pact that I made with myself at that time, and - years later, nothing has really changed. I will always be in the quest of a new challenge, a new accomplishment. For me, it's important as breathing.'

Older Men : 'I love being with an older guy. He's already done his crazy things.'

Stage Fright : 'I am no exception to the rule. In my case, it's always at the moment when I leave my dressing room to go up to the stage that my stage fright comes out. Precisely in the hall, when the lights are off, and the people start to scream. I attribute this stage fright to a real desire to answer the expectations of the audience. Personally, I approach every show like it is, at the same time, my first show and my last. Since the public is different at every show, we must be motivated by a constant concern to do well, performance after performance. The only solution to stage fright is to charge ahead and climb up on stage. It's doing what I love most in the world - singing. You must conquer the fear and say: 'We'll go and have fun!'

Wish : 'If I had a wish it would be that I would be able to stop time. I find that everything is going very fast around me and I sometimes have the impression of not having time to take advantage of the beautiful moments.'

Life At The Top : 'I would be misleading if I said that it's easy and I'm always on a high. I find it rough and the better my career goes, the harder I find it.'

Performing On Stage : 'I really love it, because all day long, all year long . . . everybody's always telling me what to do. "Be careful", "Don't do this", "Don't forget to talk about that", "I don't think you should wear this . . . ", "It's too much", or "Not enough . . . ", "It's too spectacular" or whatever . .. But immediately, when the curtain opens, this is my home and nobody will have the courage to come on stage and tell me what to do. This is the only place I can be myself.'The Audience : 'I can perform two or two-and-a-half hours and I can talk with the audience and say whatever I want to say. If I want to cry because I feel like it, I will! If I want to laugh and tell a joke, I will! If I see a beautiful girl or a baby I will bring her on stage and dance with her. Nobody can tell me what to do. This is my home and that's why I love it - because it's the place that I feel most powerful. When you feel powerful, very secure and strong about yourself, you feel beautiful and every woman in the world wants to feel beautiful. I would love to be on stage every day.' 'There is nothing more beautiful than the sound of applause, the love of the public. For that - for the public - I am ready to make all sacrifices and it's my reason for living. It's what I live for.'

Celine Dion: The Complete Biography 384 pages.Lisa Peters

Singing : 'I am always amazed when people talk about my way of singing and the power of my voice. Honestly, I don't know my qualities as a singer. But I know that I work hard and that I've reached a certain maturity on the vocal plane, but the great interest of people in me surprises me every time.'

Listening to Celine Dion On The Radio : 'When I hear my songs on the radio, I change the station. It's not that I don't like what I do, it's simply that I prefer to listen to what other singers are doing.'

The Early Days : 'Everything seemed so easy at that time. It does me good to talk about those beautiful years, because it's like I return to the source. Sometimes I have this image of myself kneeling by a stream, splashing my face with the pure clean water, I see myself as a young girl, who runs innocently in the field of wheat, hair in the wind. This is to say that the more the events jostle in my present professional life, the more I hang on to those years where I didn't realise all that was happening to me.'

Loneliness : 'Being alone - and I've thought about it - makes me terrified. I don't want to finish my days alone or pass my most beautiful years as a woman without a husband and without children. I don't want to wake up and feel I've failed my life as a woman simply because I've given everything to my career. I want to give my life a sense. I don't want to end my days like Greta Garbo or like the big female stars who finished their lives in oblivion.'
'I am not a "solitary" girl. I need people. It's my security.' 'Being alone - it's a scary thought. I don't like being the youngest all the time. I'm frightened sometimes of losing everybody

Career Demands : 'Today ... it's bigger, more serious, harder. I have more pressure on my shoulders. I am more demanding on myself. Other times, if I made a mistake when I was young, people found it cute, but today, I know very well that I can no longer permit myself to make mistakes. My reality today is a lot different than what I knew when I began in this profession.'