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Who said: "In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us"

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"In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us." - Beverly Sills

Beverly SillsBeverly Sills was one of the best-known American opera singers of the 1960s and 1970s.

She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929. At the age of three, she won a radio contest and soon began singing on the radio regularly as Bubbles Silverman. After studying opera with a voice coach as a child she made her operatic debut in at the age of 18 at the Philadelphia Civic Opera.

She first sang for the New York City Opera in 1955, after which she took a break returning to the New York City Opera in 1966. In 1975, she performed for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. After retiring from singing in 1980, she became the general manager of the New York City Opera. In 1994 she became Chairman of the Lincoln Center and in 2002, of the Metropolitan Opera, stepping down in 2005. She was also a chairman of the board of trustees of the March of Dimes.

She received many honors during her long career including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. She died on July 2, 2007 from lung cancer at the age of 78.


More quotes from Beverly Sills

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.

There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm.

You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

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