People said when I started, 'Why don't you just copy your father's style?' I had to be myself, singing my songs in my own way.
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.
A lot of people want to donate a kidney, but they're not in a position to because they have health issues of their own, and a lot of people need them. That's why the list is long and it takes a long time.
When you reach 50, what you care about is being honest, being accurate, and being an example.
The dialysis is to wash my blood, to keep my kidneys functioning.
I was pretty bad. When I first was diagnosed with kidney failure, my function - the function of my kidney was less than 8 percent.
I didn't realize I was still grieving for my father at 30-something.
I've always been interested in the office. I was a secretary a long time ago, and I've always been into paperwork. My first secretarial job was 1965 or 1966.
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.
I like to grow and experiment, and as an artist, it's about kicking the bar up a little.
I continually acted up to get attention. My father gave me that, and once he left, I felt that I didn't have any.
When you have put all your faith in man and continue to be disappointed, don't you hope there is something out of there that is not of human element?
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.
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.
Losing people is dark, but some things you just have to accept.
Las Vegas has the type of audience - and they haven't changed since my father's days - they're still boring and bored. And there's only that handful of artists that they really enjoy and know how to respond to.
I look 10 years younger than I am. Unfortunately, sometimes I act like I'm 10 years old.
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.
I think that it's going to be interesting to see where Beyonce's career goes.
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.
I'm an ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances.
I had to make peace with my past because I can't change it.
Life is such a gift, I just say thank you all day.
I'm the type of person who won't cancel a show even if I don't feel my best.
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.
I've always adored my father's music, but ever since I'd started singing, whether it was while I was still a student at the University of Massachusetts or professionally, I avoided Dad's material.
If you don't shop smart, you get a little trendy.
There are a lot of great artists with great voices who aren't singing what they should be singing.
I've always loved Spanish. I love my father's Spanish records.
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.
As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids.
I've had my share of doing things that I really wish I hadn't done.
I don't think that my parents even imagined that I would be exposed to drugs. In those days, for some reason, it was not talked about, just like sex was not talked about.
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.
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.
I would never do an album with 10 songs like 'Jump Start' on it. I'll only go so far to please fans.
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.
We have to stop rewarding bad behavior.
What's really important? That I'm an individual, I guess. I am an individual - a strong one, too. I'm Natalie Cole. I gotta be me.
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.
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.
I imagine there are a lot of people who will never be able to accept me because they feel I've let them down, but I am a different person, and most people have welcomed me back in that spirit.
One thing that stays the same is my passion for music. Other than that, I've become more dedicated. I think that I really work much harder than I ever did when I first started at my craft; I'm more dedicated, and I have become a perfectionist.
I think that I sound a lot better than Diana Ross.
The worst I think that I ever was, when 'Unforgettable' had come out, and not long after that I was on - I was on my way to my second divorce. And that was a crushing, crushing blow.
I don't think anyone can measure up to what my father had achieved. I'm just happy to at least play some of his music, but he is really the one who was the pioneer, the one who started all this. He's really The King.
It's important to wallow and grieve when you have a health issue. I don't think you really get the best stuff out of life until you've had the worst stuff.
It's the same girl-who-has-everything story. You know, the one where she's insecure and scared and unhappy and has marriage problems and doesn't know how to handle stardom and screws up right and left and gets in with the wrong people and goes down the drain.
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.
