I think it's OK to compose songs and sing them about questions that we don't have answers to yet.

I think that's the role of an artist, right? To touch someone and make us stretch out just a little bit more.

In an abusive relationship - we'll talk about men and women - women are often restrained, by words or out of fear, from leaving. They will tolerate abuse up to and including being put to death.

I just kind of tried to stay true to myself.

I just love music. I love all kinds of music, and I was exposed to it, me and my siblings, from the time we were in utero.

Once I started singing, I realized it was a language I'd forgotten I could speak.

To be up on stage and interacting with musicians, that was a huge epiphany for me.

Hey, maybe I can sing locally and earn a couple of bucks.

I've never been the type of singer that can sing in heels and the gown and all this stuff, because I can't get to where I want to go while I'm in that getup.

You have to be willing to look a certain way, and hold your body a certain way, until you get to where you want to go - I'm talking about musically, now.

There's a certain place you want to get to, and in order to do that, you have to be vulnerable.

The role that people play in your life can determine how far you can go.

Time is just something we invented to make motion seem simple.

The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity.

My father used to say, 'Let them see you and not the suit. That should be secondary.'

I heard that all the time. ‘He makes it look too easy, he doesn’t run hard.’ It was always a slight on me.

Politics is the food of sense exposed to the hunger of folly.

I'd like to be doing quality acting in a quality role and making as many people as possible happy.

I don't think anyone expected me to get the BAFTA. The bookies didn't have me down. It's definitely made a huge difference in my career, but I don't dwell on it.

But the prospects of designing chemical plants for industrial scale chemical processes seemed far less interesting than the chemical events that occur in biological systems.

It is rare, I think, for parents to let their children -- of any age -- grow up and become peers.