Diane Schuurs

I was determined to succeed in what I loved to do. I wasn’t going to let my disability stand in my way.

I try to keep my ego at the right size. No matter what, I just do my best to live in an attitude of gratitude.

Jimmy (Wakely) told me, ‘I don’t want you to sound so much like Dinah Washington.’ So, I thought, ‘How can I get around this?’ And one of the people I really dug was Patti Page. So I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to sound like her.’ I actually did with a couple curly-cues thrown in for effect, but, that’s how I started getting away from the predominant Dinah influence, and getting my own style together.

[on Frank Sinatra] He was a compassionate guy. He loved to have fun. He had a movie theatre in his house. We munched on popcorn and watched movies together.

Frank Sinatra and Stan Getz had been friends of mine, and I wanted to pay tribute to them.

I just remember always trying to emulate Dinah Washington, hanging out in my bedroom closet.

I’m not Sammy Glick. I’ve never killed anyone. I don’t have to. I’m too talented.

So when you get a chance to look at things and chill and relax, it makes you want it more, and that’s why I’m so happy to be back!

When you go to Marvel, they lock you in a room with the scripts; they really are that secretive.

I’m not that good looking… nobody is that good looking. I have seen a lot of movie stars, and maybe four are amazing looking. The rest have a team of gay guys who make it happen.

If it’s bad dialogue then I would think of nothing worse than the camera lingering on me and the person I’m talking to for fifteen minutes.

There is no such thing as ugly. That’s a word that doesn’t really enter my vocabulary. If there’s any definition to being perfect, you’re perfect at being yourself.

And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, ’cause you can’t drink anymore. You can’t come home drunk and go, ‘Hey, here’s a little switch: Daddy’s gonna throw up on you!’

You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: ‘Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?’ or ‘Do owls exist?’ or ‘Are there hats?’

You haven’t been around here long, have you.

I don’t try to just be a blues singer – I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.

Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.

Yeah. I still live in Canada, so it’s not quite the same. And when I’m in L.A., I’m in a car; you don’t have the contact with the public. It’s not so bad. It’s still pretty much the same. I still feel pretty normal-ish.

Of course, chicks keep popping up. When you’re in a hotel, a pretty young lady makes life bearable.

When you are writing a script, you can’t help but stop and daydream about which actors are going to play the parts, and I kind of imagined Natalie Portman. Not just because she is beautiful, because obviously she is, but she is a wonderful actress who hasn’t had a chance in a long time to show the world how talented she is.

Student debt is like HPV – if you go to college, you are most likely to get it, and it will follow you for the rest of your life.