- On growth: The one thing I've learned in this business -- and in this life -- is: whenever you say, nothing is going to happen - something happens.
- [on her father, composer Richard Whiting] His greatest pleasure was in finding out what other composers were doing. He was a very good musician, and he loved to take their new songs and play them. Always accepted the new, adored what was going on with his friends. Jerome Kern always insisted that my father listen to whatever new songs he'd written; he always wanted his opinion. My father loved Cole Porter, considered him a real innovator. But his real joy was with Gershwin, whom he'd known in New York as a young man and whom he's helped out. When 'Porgy and Bess' opened in New York in 1935, he took the train from Los Angeles just to be at the opening. And he almost died, as did Gershwin, because the reception to that first production was so half-hearted. He resented it so - Gershwin was his friend, his buddy, in whose work he took such pride.
- [on her father, composer Richard Whiting] He'd say 'Margaret, there's all kinds of music in the world. I was raised to like popular music, but I love the classical too. And if you're going to be a musician or a singer, you may not be able to create it all, but at least you've got to understand it well. There's a whole spectrum of music, just as there are people, and you mustn't shut any of it off. Be exposed to everything'. That was the first thing he taught me.
- If I'm any good at all as a singer, a lot of it is due to something my father taught me. He once said, 'Margaret, you have a good voice, you certainly know how to sing. Now spend years in perfecting your craft. I hate to think of it as a craft. It's something I love to do, but it is a job, it is work, and we work very hard to write a song. You must sing this song with great affection and feeling. It takes the men who write the lyrics a long time. Just believe in their words. Do them simply and honestly. That's how a singer should interpret a song'.
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