American fans want to meet you, and they wait for that autograph by the stage door. In the UK, it doesn't really happen that much.

I dress in a sophisticated and classy way - I always dress in a way I know my mother wouldn't be embarrassed to see.

Ice cream is my comfort food.

Good music shouldn't have a shelf life.

I did my dissertation on Kafka.

I love Barbra Streisand and Sade who've both had careers in soul and I want my music to have that timeless quality that isn't necessarily now.

If I make a song where I'm happy, I sound completely mad - I think my voice is better-suited for sadder songs.

My grandfather was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who lived in Northern Ireland and apparently when he sang in the synagogue he made everyone cry.

I like how strong Sade is and how she doesn't give away too much.

I want to be as feminine and classic as possible.

Dance music has pushed its way into the mainstream. Which is good for me.

You have succeeded in life when all you really WANT is only what you really NEED.

If men knew all that women think, they would be twenty times more audacious.

One is that I am a regular, everyday person, you know what I mean. I feel that wherever I am, I really am.

I think I was unprepared for war.

A writer who has published as many books as I have has developed, of necessity, a hide like a rhino's, while inside there dwells a frail, hopeful butterfly of a spirit.

You have to be so confident and so gifted to fill five minutes of nothing at the very beginning of a play before even a word is uttered.

People ask me to record their answering machines all the time. I love it. It's a miracle to me that people want to hear back those characters.

...we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.

I came from a very strict background. [So if you want to make a scary movie] if you were raised as a fundamentalist, just pull all the skeletons out of your closet.