Diane Schuurs

I was determined to succeed in what I loved to do. I wasn’t going to let my disability stand in my way.

As far back as I can remember, singing was in my blood. My parents loved music, and I loved to sing. I was scatting at an early age.

I wrote “Pilot of My Destiny” because of my love of flying. The fact that my brother is a pilot inspired me to write it. I call him pilot. He calls me copilot.

My career has been a combination of hard work and timing. Working with Stevie Wonder at the Kennedy Center Honors was timing. The Tonight Show was timing. Carnegie Hall, that was timing. My marriage was timing. I was ready, I wanted to know what it was like.

I try to just be grateful for what I have, and not [focus on] the things that I don’t have.

Frank Sinatra and Stan Getz had been friends of mine, and I wanted to pay tribute to them.

I was asked to come to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states.

I was making guitars and I was a sheet metal worker and if you ever see sheet metal workers’ hands, you’ve never seen so many cuts in your life.

What cha saying boy, you think Im playing boy, watch ya mouth girl, its a mans world.

Last year I couldn’t even have a date,but now it seems that girls have changed their opinion about me.

I don’t have a sound bite for everything.

When I was a question on Jeopardy!, that’s when I felt famous!

There’s a lot of contemporary actresses I admire, but there’s practically no one who’s made a color movie whose career I’d want … I don’t feel very modern at all.

There is no such thing as ugly. That’s a word that doesn’t really enter my vocabulary. If there’s any definition to being perfect, you’re perfect at being yourself.

I decided I am not going to say things I do not mean anymore.

You don’t have to be older to live your dreams, you can do it at any age.

Congratulations, Congress! 77% disapproval rating! You may be about to become the English language’s most offensive C-word.

I did Jonathon Ross last year and he said ‘do people do impressions of David Brent?’ and I went ‘well, they can’t really because he’s such a normal bloke’. Then, after the show, me and Ross are walking through the car park and this bloke jumps out and goes ‘der-ner-ner-ner-ner’, does the David Brent dance and runs away. Jonathon Ross was in hysterics: ‘all that shit you came out with and then some bloke jumps out and runs away’. But on the whole it doesn’t really happen.

Okra is the closest thing to nylon I’ve ever eaten. It’s like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.

You don’t just decide to destroy a person by making up stuff, and no one at ‘SNL’ is writing to go after someone.

I’m a big fan of ‘The Office’, both the British and the American versions.