Selena Quintanilla
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Quintanilla: "I’m very real, very sincere, and honest, and that’s how I’ll always be."
Quintanilla: "Well, when I am singing I am a completely different person. I could be very free, depending on the situation I could do what I want. I could have to deliver, as with many songs, a lot of emotion if a song is very sad, or very happy with a fun song. It depends, it depends. When I’m home, I’m normal, like anyone from the public."
Quintanilla: "With a positive attitude, you can be anything you want to be."
Quintanilla: "And you have to be grateful to the public in that way to give autographs if they want an autograph, you give them an autograph! It’s not going to take very much of your time, I do it!"
Quintanilla: "It’s really cool to kind of have people come to me and get excited, you know, I don’t see myself that way."
Quintanilla: "I hope to make a lot of people happy with my music. I hope people understand that when I sing my songs, I am not only singing them because I like to sing them, but I am singing them because I want to touch somebody’s heart. In our music, the words have a strong message and somewhere out there somebody’s going through the something. And if I can touch somebody in that way, that’s the ultimate."
Quintanilla: "The most important is that the people accept me for my music, not for physical appearances."
Quintanilla: "I want to be remembered not only as an entertainer but as a person who cared a lot, and I gave the best that I could. I tried to be the best role model that I possibly could."
Quintanilla: "I’m always planning for my future. The public can support an artist or let them fall."
Quintanilla: "Music is not a very stable business, you know, it comes, and it goes, so does money. But your education stays with you for the rest of your life."
Quintanilla: "All I need to do is try and do the best that I can do."
Quintanilla: "I started singing when I was six and a half and we’d perform for relatives. My father would do this show-off-the-kids type of thing. I was very shy and I hated it. I used to cry and throw my little tantrums. I didn’t want to sing in front of anybody because I was too shy."
Quintanilla: "If you’re gonna be somebody, you need to be a leader, not a follower…be strong-minded, the impossible is always possible."
Quintanilla: "I lost a lot out of my teenage hood but I gained a lot too. I can’t really say that I lost because I got ahead of everyone as far as career and being more mature about business, even though I didn’t know what the heck was going on."
Quintanilla: "The reason I’m really appreciative of everything that’s going on around me is because of the fact that I never expected it, and I want to keep that attitude."
Quintanilla: "I don’t feel pressure because I’m not trying to portray something that I’m not."
Quintanilla: "Our culture is very beautiful. It’s very romantic. Spanish is a very romantic language. It’s the language of love. I think it’s very sad if we forget where we come from. Because we are who we are. I think the color or our skin is beautiful. I think people should be proud of that."
Quintanilla: "I feel very proud to be Mexican. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn Spanish when I was a girl, but it’s never too late to get in touch with your roots."
Quintanilla: "You shouldn’t care for somebody just because of the materialistic things that they have, and I’m a firm believer in that."
Quintanilla: "It’s like a performance, singing. It is like a 'show' and I am not like that normally. There are 2 different personalities. Normally I dress in a more modest fashion."
Quintanilla: "When you’re young, you don’t think about this seriously. You just want to go outside and play with your friends. I think at the age of fifteen is when I started actually telling myself, 'you know what? I could do this for the rest of my life. I like it. I should take it seriously. What could I do better?'"
Quintanilla: "Since I was small, when I was in school, I was a business girl. I would buy things to sell, gums for three cents, things like that."
Quintanilla: "The life of an artist is not all glamorous. It’s a lot of work. A lot of people think that it’s very easy. They think you always stay in good hotels, you buy good things, but it is not like that. You have to work very hard like everybody."
Quintanilla: "Anybody can be a role model."
Quintanilla: "We went through a hard time, and we had to turn to music as a means to putting food on the table. And we’ve been doing it ever since. No regrets, either."
Quintanilla: "Everyday we had to practice only 15 minutes. We didn’t like it at all but when you’re really young you want to play with your friends and neighbors. Just to pass the time and have fun! And to practice 15 minutes! It was, 'Ahh - But papa, we wanna play!' But those minutes paid off!"
Quintanilla: "When you get hard work, you get success."
Quintanilla: "What’s cool about our family is that we don’t hold grudges, and I think that’s sort of been the key to the success. We have our disagreements, but whether we’re right or wrong, we’ll just go and apologize. That’s just the way we are."
Quintanilla: "The family that plays together stays together."
Quintanilla: "I am Texan. I really like Corpus because it’s really laid back. It’s like 385,000 in population. Its very small compared to Los Angeles. I like it. Everybody treats me like I’m nobody. It’s like ‘Selena’s at the mall. She’s shopping again. No biggie.’ When I go other places, I’m working, and I’m enjoying meeting people, but when I go home, that’s my time to be myself, and relax."
Quintanilla: "One thing is that if I ever have children later on, for sure I want my children to know Spanish. It only makes you a better person or even a smarter person to know two languages. If that barrier is not there you can cross both lines, talk to English and Spanish people, and it gets you a lot farther in business and personal communication."