Skip to main content

Creativity Quote by Kate Smith

"I was always daydreaming about singing in big productions on Broadway"

About this Quote

Ambition lands here not as swagger but as sanctuary. “Always daydreaming” puts Kate Smith’s desire in the realm of private rehearsal: a mental stage where a young woman in the early 20th century could try on size, glamour, and legitimacy without asking permission. The phrasing is tellingly gentle. She isn’t “planning” or “demanding” Broadway; she’s imagining it, the way working-class strivers often do when the real world offers limited lanes and plenty of gatekeepers.

Broadway, too, isn’t just a venue. It’s an American shorthand for arrival: union orchestras, marquees, national attention, the kind of production scale that turns a voice into a public event. Smith’s line taps that cultural magnetism while quietly admitting the distance between aspiration and access. For a singer whose fame ultimately traveled through radio and wartime patriotism rather than the footlights, the quote reads like a snapshot of a forked path: the dream of theatrical spectacle versus the medium that actually made her ubiquitous.

The subtext is about performance as social mobility. Daydreaming isn’t laziness; it’s early training, an inward discipline that keeps the future vivid when the present is cramped. There’s also a hint of poignancy: “big productions” suggests not just singing, but being surrounded by the machinery that validates talent - costumes, choreography, applause on cue. It’s the desire to be framed as extraordinary, not merely to be good.

In a culture that romanticizes overnight success, Smith’s sentence preserves the long pre-fame truth: before the nation knows your name, you audition in your head.

Quote Details

TopicMusic
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Smith, Kate. (2026, January 15). I was always daydreaming about singing in big productions on Broadway. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-always-daydreaming-about-singing-in-big-155227/

Chicago Style
Smith, Kate. "I was always daydreaming about singing in big productions on Broadway." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-always-daydreaming-about-singing-in-big-155227/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was always daydreaming about singing in big productions on Broadway." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-always-daydreaming-about-singing-in-big-155227/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Kate Add to List
Kate Smith quote on Broadway and daydreaming
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

USA Flag

Kate Smith (May 1, 1907 - June 17, 1986) was a Musician from USA.

31 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Zooey Deschanel, Actress
Cynthia Weil, Musician