- Yes, my voice is natural. I've never had a singing lesson or anything like that. Not even Fanny Anitúa, a good friend I admired so much, wanted me to take them: "You're crazy, woman, that's just going to ruin your voice".
- [referring to Agustín Lara] He is my great friend. I have proved it in good times and bad times. I am proud to be his good friend. And as such, I have no qualms in saying that in Mexico there is no songwriter who comes close to him. . . not even to the height of his socks! All the others are the army. He is the general.
- [when asked, "Why do you sing with so much feeling?"] Hey! You're wrong. I sing simply because I feel the desire to sing. But my voice. . . how shall I put it. . . it is because of its special timbre. It seems like I'm going to burst into tears during any dumb phrase of a song. Other times you get the idea that I'm singing with my nose. That is what has made me different from the rest. I sing as I can and as I know. When I sing, I am not Antonia Peregrino, I am Toña la Negra and perhaps that is what gives my voice something new and pleasant.
- I am 100% from Veracruz. . . I am from the very Port of Veracruz and I learned to live among the song of the waves, the chants of the fishermen, the wind that ruffles the palm trees . . .
- [remembering her childhood] I sang like those little birds who don't even know the do-re-mi-fa but give lessons to the most conceited artists.
- To me Agustín has been a maestro. I am not a philosopher or a mystic, nor do I want to see in Agustín other virtues and defects than those he has, but one cannot deny that the man who has channeled his anguish and his sorrow in songs of such rare beauty is a maestro of life.
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