When most artists walk offstage, they go to a lonely hotel room. I went home to my family. They were there before the show, during and after. It's been great. I never would have done it any other way. I wasn't gonna miss raising my kids. There was no way that was gonna happen.

Gloria Estefan

Home Great Family

The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice.

Gloria Estefan

Truth Sad Unity

I have great genes. Thank you to my mom and dad for that one.

Gloria Estefan

Mom Great You

My mom was a source of strength. She showed me by example that women, regardless of how difficult life may get, can do it all.

Gloria Estefan

Women Strength Mom

Whatever it is your heart desires, please go for it, it's yours to have.

Gloria Estefan

Art Yours Your

There are so many beautiful things that are a part of the world, and I've always looked at life that way; I've always tried to put on a smile and a brave front, not just for my kids but in my own life and all the difficulties that I've gone through.

Gloria Estefan

Smile Life Art

As an immigrant, I appreciate, far more than the average American, the liberties we have in this country. Silence is a big enemy of morality. I don't want our blunders in history to get repeated.

Gloria Estefan

History Age Want

Family has always been the number one priority no matter what happens anywhere else.

Gloria Estefan

Family Where Ways

We seal our fate with the choices we take, but don't give a second thought to the chances we take.

Gloria Estefan

Chance Wit Thought

I'm very comfortable in my own skin now. I started just being myself more and more. For women, this happens as you get older. I loved my 40s - I thought they were fantastic. And I'm loving my 50s. I'm going to love everything because you're either older or dead!

Gloria Estefan

Women Men Love

Motherhood is... difficult and... rewarding.

Gloria Estefan

War Mother's Day T

You've got to believe. Never be afraid to dream.

Gloria Estefan

You T Raid

The responsibility of carrying and bringing a new life into this world is one that cannot be taken lightly.

Gloria Estefan

Life Car Yin

There are so many difficult things we're living through in the world today, so many horrible events, but we cannot let them stop us. No matter what happens, I feel you must move forward with optimism and not get totally sideswiped.

Gloria Estefan

War You World

We protect aspirin bottles in this country better than we protect guns from accidents by children.

Gloria Estefan

UN Try Than

The Internet has been a blessing and a curse. The curse we know: A lot of people appropriating your intellectual property without paying for it. But I think it's important to realize the blessing of the Internet, which is that everybody has a voice and you can break through, even without a record company.

Gloria Estefan

Your You Yin

In the United States, if you believe in yourself and you're determined and persevere, you're going to succeed.

Gloria Estefan

Yourself Yours Your

Everything that an artist does is a risk. Some people want you to stay the same. If you want to evolve, they want to keep you in a certain place.

Gloria Estefan

Art You Want

I have a very open line of communication with both my children.

Gloria Estefan

Communication Wit Very

If there's ever been a dark moment in my life... well, I wanted to check out. Music was a big escape.

Gloria Estefan

Music Mom Men

I wanted very badly to be a mum. I'm a very maternal person. But at the point that I met Emilio I was focusing on a career. I never would have thought that I would get married at 21 and much less be a mum by 23.

Gloria Estefan

Car Would Wanted

You want your fans to like what you do, because it's coming from your heart and soul. You write it, you produce this thing. It's like your baby.

Gloria Estefan

Nothing ever stays in the middle. You always go from one extreme to the other, and politics is certainly that way.

Gloria Estefan

Apparently Pope John Paul II and his boys - is that what you call them? - loved one of my songs and thought I was putting spiritual messages in my music. I'm not religious as such. Dogma and I don't get along.

Gloria Estefan

People tend to forget that celebrities are human beings. We live our lives. We try to do what we love, which is music. And to share it with everyone in our job usually is to entertain and to make people forget their troubles.

Gloria Estefan

I wrote poetry, which got me into lyrics. Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Elton John pulled me into pop. I started singing with a band - just for fun - when I was 17. And pretty soon, I was thinking I could sing pop in English as well as Spanish.

Gloria Estefan

I was going to be a doctor, but I think my music allowed me to help more people than I could have done one-on-one as a psychologist. Just like other people's music really helped me.

Gloria Estefan

I gotta tell you, my nature is not to be the center of attention.

Gloria Estefan

Having felt people's love and support first hand through difficult moments in my life makes me feel it's our responsibility to help one another.

Gloria Estefan

My inspirations include the Beatles - love, love, love them - Elton John, Carole King, and Stevie Wonder.

Gloria Estefan

Touring is hard. It's really hard on the singer, especially, because your body is your instrument and you have to be so good, it's like boot camp out there; I can't do anything - just sleep, sing and be very healthy.

Gloria Estefan

I'm careful what I put out there into the universe, musically. I don't take it lightly.

Gloria Estefan

I hold 'Mi Tierra,' my first Spanish-language album, very close to me because that was all done in my native tongue and won me my first Grammy.

Gloria Estefan

When you're a front man for a band, there's nowhere to hide. It took me a long time to get used to that. But music is my first love. I started singing when I talked.

Gloria Estefan

There's no reason that just because you're a celebrity you can't write.

Gloria Estefan

To know that everything we say and do to this new little human being may have a profound effect on him or her is a daunting obligation.

Gloria Estefan

You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come.

Gloria Estefan

All I tell artists is, 'Do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you're chasing your tail that way. It's not going to happen, and if you're successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art.'

Gloria Estefan

Once you know the Romance languages, singing in those languages is so sexy and sensual. I do have a global audience, so why not?

Gloria Estefan

My mom was definitely very strict with me.

Gloria Estefan

I'm a writer and this is what I love to do.

Gloria Estefan

When I was a teenager, I was fat. I was shy. I wore glasses. I had a big eyebrow and hair all over my body. They were years of torture.

Gloria Estefan

Music has been so healing in my life, so the fact that my music could be that for someone else is the best gift of my whole career. People have told me that they got married to my music, divorced to my music, and played my music while they were having their baby.

Gloria Estefan

In this life, I'm always going to choose the positive.

Gloria Estefan

A lot of the way I sing is playing off other musicians. It's what I love to do the most.

Gloria Estefan

When most artists walk offstage, they go to a lonely hotel room. I went home to my family. They were there before the show, during and after. It's been great. I never would have done it any other way. I wasn't gonna miss raising my kids. There was no way that was gonna happen.

Gloria Estefan

I spent 15 years on the road between touring and recording and I never saw anything. I want to enjoy life.

Gloria Estefan

I've been offered a lot of things that celebrities do that I wouldn't do, like perfumes, lines of clothing and this, that and the other.

Gloria Estefan

Sometimes my mother had difficulty communicating with me about certain topics.

Gloria Estefan

Sex and drugs were simply not discussed in our culture at that time.

Gloria Estefan

There are certain realities we must speak of with our children that were not present when I was a child.

Gloria Estefan