Natalie Cole Quotes

“I've had my share of doing things that I really wish I hadn't done.”

— Natalie Cole

“My idols are Janis Joplin and Annie Lennox, who are neither of them from the typical pop culture.”

— Natalie Cole

“I never got to make that transition from little girl to young woman ... and that really screws you up.”

— Natalie Cole

“I'm a born-again Christian. I was raised Episcopalian - I've always been of a Christian faith, but I became much more active in it when I married my first husband, Marvin. I changed from Episcopalian to Baptist.”

— Natalie Cole

“Aretha Franklin does not like me.”

— Natalie Cole

As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids.

— Natalie Cole

“By the time I approached my forties, I had the self-assurance to approach all the genres I love so deeply: R & B, rock, jazz, and pop.”

— Natalie Cole

“God was going to be to me the father that I never had, the father that I didn't have enough of, enough time with.”

— Natalie Cole

“I continually acted up to get attention. My father gave me that, and once he left, I felt that I didn't have any.”

— Natalie Cole

“I didn't realize I was still grieving for my father at 30-something.”

— Natalie Cole

I like Kelly Rowland, I think that she's great. It's hard to come out of the group of Destiny's Child and still kick some butt.

— Natalie Cole

“I love what I do so much. I just keep going. Not much can bring me down.”

— Natalie Cole

“I thank my dad for leaving me such a wonderful, wonderful heritage.”

— Natalie Cole

“I think that I am a walking testimony to you can have scars. You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life.”

— Natalie Cole

“I think that I sound a lot better than Diana Ross.”

— Natalie Cole

“I would never do an album with 10 songs like 'Jump Start' on it. I'll only go so far to please fans.”

— Natalie Cole

“If you don't have dialysis, absolutely, you will die. Dialysis is actually keeping me alive.”

— Natalie Cole

“It's remarkable what a new kidney does to your life. I have no complaints ... I'm pretty amazed. I have been working on my stamina.”

— Natalie Cole

“It's the subtleties of a ballad that truly make it beautiful - and it's all in the way you present it to the listener.”

— Natalie Cole

“Life is such a gift, I just say thank you all day.”

— Natalie Cole

Losing people is dark, but some things you just have to accept.

— Natalie Cole

“My father led by example. He wasn't much of a talker - he walked life.”

— Natalie Cole

“My father was a pioneer in so many ways. He was fearless, and I think that I kind of picked that up from him as well.”

— Natalie Cole

“People say I look younger than the music I'm doing just because the songs are older. Hopefully I can keep my youthful look!”

— Natalie Cole

“Physically, I've seen a change in my life. No, I haven't had a face lift or anything like that. I've grown. That's God's countenance.”

— Natalie Cole

“The dialysis is to wash my blood, to keep my kidneys functioning.”

— Natalie Cole

“There are a lot of great artists with great voices who aren't singing what they should be singing.”

— Natalie Cole

“There are some great human beings out there. That's all I can say.”

— Natalie Cole

“We are born with two kidneys and only need one to survive. Maybe God gave us the other one so that we could give it away.”

— Natalie Cole

We have to stop rewarding bad behavior.

— Natalie Cole

“When I sang my father's songs in concert, that was all people wanted to hear. I was always asking myself, 'Can I measure up?'”

— Natalie Cole

“Being my dad's daughter has allowed me to do a lot of things that maybe another artist might not be able to do or wouldn't be necessarily embraced doing.”

— Natalie Cole

“I couldn't breathe. I - I went into - literally, my kidneys stopped functioning. They stopped, you know, processing the fluid that was starting to build up in my body.”

— Natalie Cole

I like Babyface, but he keeps the good stuff for himself. If he's willing to give his good stuff to me, we'll talk. But it can't be any of his B-grade stuff.

— Natalie Cole

I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.

— Natalie Cole

I think it just came to a point where I made a decision to do better with my life and health. And that is only by God's grace because there are no guarantees.

— Natalie Cole

“I was determined to create my own identity. My first hits, in fact, were straight-up rhythm and blues. My voice was compared to Aretha Franklin's - though, for my money, no one compares to Aretha.”

— Natalie Cole

“I was madly in love with Elvis Presley. Dad wasn't into it at all, at least not for himself as a performer. He used to say, 'Mr. Cole does not rock n' roll.'”

— Natalie Cole

“I'll never totally get away from being who I am, which first, to many, is the daughter of Nat King Cole, which became even more intensified with the 'Unforgettable' album.”

— Natalie Cole

“I've always been an extremist. Some of us have very addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The recovery is a day-to-day process.”

— Natalie Cole

My first trip to Mexico was with my dad because of his Spanish records. That was back in 1958. I found a picture of me when I was eight dressed as a little senorita.

— Natalie Cole

One of these days, I'd like to put together a revue of all my music, which would probably turn into a marathon. There's a couple of hit songs from almost every phase of my career. At the same time, visually, if you don't handle it properly, it could be a cacophony of craziness, because there's just so many different kinds of music.

— Natalie Cole

The house where I grew up in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles was like a dream - even though my family faced threats after my father bought it in August 1948.

— Natalie Cole

“The medication I had to take was a form of chemotherapy. You feel like death every day. No appetite. No energy. But the treatment worked. It cured my liver 80 per cent but compromised my kidneys.”

— Natalie Cole

“There's inevitably something missing when you grow up in this kind of an environment when your parents travel a lot. When your father is famous, you are looked at and expected of. There are standards you need to meet.”

— Natalie Cole

We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

— Natalie Cole

When I did 'Unforgettable,' it wasn't appropriate for us to take liberties with that music. There had to be kind of a fine line between what had made it so great and the fact that a woman was singing it. We changed some of the arrangements, but not too much.

— Natalie Cole

When I was old enough to walk home alone from school, I loved seeing our house from a distance. It sat on the corner of South Muirfield Road and West 4th Street and had this proud, majestic look. But I rarely went through the front door. The back was more dramatic.

— Natalie Cole

You shouldn't have regrets. I'd say instead that I've learned a lot of lessons. Yes, I could have handled some things better. But they've also made me who I am today.

— Natalie Cole

“People don't always have the vision, and the secret for the person with the vision is to stand up. It takes a lot of courage.”

— Natalie Cole