Creativity Quote by Leontyne Price

Leontyne Price frames reinvention as a discipline, not a mood. “Shifting gears” borrows the language of machinery, the unglamorous reality behind any glamorous career: you don’t drift into the next chapter, you choose it, deliberately, with your hands on the stick. Coming from a singer who built an era-defining reputation at the Metropolitan Opera and then stepped back while still revered, the line reads less like inspiration-poster wisdom and more like hard-earned stagecraft. In opera, timing is everything; you don’t wait for the orchestra to rescue you. Price applies that same sense of cue-taking to a life.

The second sentence sharpens into a philosophy of control and dignity. “Leave your era” is a provocative challenge to the culture’s addiction to permanence, especially for performers who are expected to either cling to relevance or fade into nostalgia. Price refuses both. She implies that an “era” is something you inhabit, shape, and then exit on your own terms. The alternative is quieter but crueler: letting your era “leave you,” being discarded by trends, ageism, or institutional gatekeeping.

Subtextually, the quote also speaks to Black excellence under pressure. Price’s career unfolded through segregation’s long shadow and the politics of “firsts.” Her insistence on choosing the moment of departure reads like protection against being turned into a symbol after the voice is no longer yours to command. It’s a statement about artistry as authorship: not just how you perform, but how you end the performance.