Streisand: "I'm not weird, just different from people who aren't different."

Streisand: "Doubt can motivate you, so don't be afraid of it. Confidence and doubt are at two ends of the scale, and you need both. They balance each other out."

Streisand: "I go by instinct - I don't worry about experience."

Streisand: "Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth."

Streisand: "You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it."

Streisand: "I guess if you have an original take on life, or something about you is original, you don't have to study people who came before you. You don't have to mimic anybody. You just have a gut feeling inside, an instinct that tells you what's right for you, and you can't do it in any other way."

Streisand: "I'm not that ambitious anymore. I just like my privacy. I wish I really wasn't talked about at all."

Streisand: "I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven."

Streisand: "Just imagine how boring life would be if we were all the same. My idea of a perfect world is one in which we really appreciated each other's differences: Short, tall; Democrat, Republican; black, white; gay, straight-a world in which all of us are equal, but definitely not the same."

Streisand: "Nobody on this earth has the right to tell anyone that their love for another human being is morally wrong."

Streisand: "Why is it people who want the truth never believe it when they hear it?"

Streisand: "For me, one of the most disturbing elements of the right wing's political agenda is that it believes that there is one correct spiritual and moral path for all people to follow. The danger inherent in this is its explicit refusal to accept anyone who happens to lead a different lifestyle, and the condemnation of those who differ."

Streisand: "Part of our society kills what it loves, despises what it's created. It really hates success."

Streisand: "I only began to sing because I couldn't get a job as an actress."

Streisand: "I think, is wonderful about growing older, is appreciation for the miracle of existence, of life. I thank God every day. I also do believe that belief and imagination manifests reality. And therefore, even though it took twenty-five years, I did find the house, eventually, and the man I could live with."

Streisand: "I just don't want to be hampered by my own limitations."

Streisand: "Why am I so famous? What am I doing right? What are the others doing wrong?"

Streisand: "The dream - you never achieve it. The excitement of life lies in the hope, in the striving for something rather than the attainment."

Streisand: "Oh God, don't envy me, I have my own pains."

Streisand: "I am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators, they fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals put an end to child labor and they gave us the five day work week! What's to be ashamed of?"

Streisand: "When I sing, people shut up."

Streisand: "I love things that are indescribable, like the taste of an avocado or the smell of a gardenia."

Streisand: "I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good."

Streisand: "Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each slice."

Streisand: "Directing is so interesting. You know, it just sort of encompasses everything that you see, that you know, that you've felt, that you have observed."

Streisand: "I must have got my detailed, obsessive streak from my father, who was an English teacher, because my mother wasn't like me at all."

Streisand: "A man is commanding - a woman is demanding. A man is forceful - a woman is pushy. A man is uncompromising - a woman is a ball-breaker. A man is a perfectionist - a woman's a pain in the ass. He's assertive - she's aggressive. He strategizes - she manipulates. He shows leadership - she's controlling. He's committed - she's obsessed. He's persevering - she's relentless. He sticks to his guns - she's stubborn. If a man wants to get it right, he's looked up to and respected. If a woman wants to get it right, she's difficult and impossible."

Streisand: "Art finds a way to be constructive. It becomes heat in cold places; it becomes light in dark places."

Streisand: "What is exciting is not for one person to be stronger than the other... but for two people to have met their match and yet they are equally as stubborn, as obstinate, as passionate, as crazy as the other."

Streisand: "I'm sure that I don't know everything I want to know. I have so much more to learn."

Streisand: "How I wish we lived in a time when laws were not necessary to safeguard us from discrimination."

Streisand: "Just like my father, I've always loved education. In school I was a member of the honor society."

Streisand: "Art is the signature of a generation; artists have a way of defining the times."

Streisand: "I want the best product for my audience, and if I don't care 100%, who will? It's my name, my likeness that goes out there."

Streisand: "What reaches an audience is honesty. If you're saying something truthful that's supposed to be a funny line, it's going to be funny. And if it's supposed to be a serious line, it's going to be serious. But, I don't think there's a distinction between how you play drama or comedy, if it's based in the truth."

Streisand: "It's very often the artist who gives a voice to the voiceless by speaking up when no one else will."

Streisand: "There is nothing more important in life than love."

Streisand: "I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me."

New York Times: "Barbra Streisand is, as ever, firmly in control."