Once there was a great bombing, and I had my baby sister with me. I had Maria on my back and I was running back home, but I could not breathe, I could not swallow. I could not say anything. When I came home, mamika embraced me. She said, "Why are you so frightened?" That was such a balm to me. Her words still live inside me. She said, "All of us will meet anyway, even if they kill you. "There was such a strength for me in those moments. Through my mother's calm, unshakeable faith, God came to comfort me.
Pavarotti retains a kind of religious, mystical, commitment to his "work.”And he insists on referring to it as "work,” claiming: "You can always love your work; your profession, at best, you can exercise.”Few people realize that the joyful tenor, the man who is always smiling, is almost a cloistered monk . . .