"With the Supremes I made so much money so fast all I wanted to do was buy clothes and pretty things. Now I'm comfortable with money and it's comfortable with me"
About this Quote
Money enters like a stage light: blinding, flattering, and a little dangerous. Diana Ross frames her early Supremes-era wealth as a kind of adolescent rush, less financial strategy than sensory overload. The shopping binge is not a confession of shallowness so much as a tell about speed - how suddenly Motown’s assembly line could turn a young Black woman from Detroit into a global style signal. Clothes and “pretty things” are the visible, controllable parts of success, the pieces you can touch when the rest of fame feels abstract and rented.
The second sentence pivots from spree to poise, and it’s doing more work than it appears. “Now I’m comfortable with money and it’s comfortable with me” anthropomorphizes wealth as a relationship, even a negotiation. Comfort isn’t virtue; it’s mutual acclimation. That phrasing quietly rejects the old moral script that says you either stay humble and broke or become corrupted and gaudy. Ross instead claims a third lane: mastery through familiarity.
Context matters: Motown’s history is full of stories about artists who made hits without getting paid like owners. Ross’s line doesn’t litigate contracts, but it hints at the long game of learning money’s language after being thrown into its spotlight. It’s also a sly statement about taste as power. For a woman whose image was constantly managed, buying beauty becomes both pleasure and agency - until she no longer needs proof. Comfort, here, is the real luxury.
The second sentence pivots from spree to poise, and it’s doing more work than it appears. “Now I’m comfortable with money and it’s comfortable with me” anthropomorphizes wealth as a relationship, even a negotiation. Comfort isn’t virtue; it’s mutual acclimation. That phrasing quietly rejects the old moral script that says you either stay humble and broke or become corrupted and gaudy. Ross instead claims a third lane: mastery through familiarity.
Context matters: Motown’s history is full of stories about artists who made hits without getting paid like owners. Ross’s line doesn’t litigate contracts, but it hints at the long game of learning money’s language after being thrown into its spotlight. It’s also a sly statement about taste as power. For a woman whose image was constantly managed, buying beauty becomes both pleasure and agency - until she no longer needs proof. Comfort, here, is the real luxury.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Diana
Add to List




