My energy to sing, I get it from my singing. Singing was not a reason to make a living. This is the only thing I wanted to do.

For my convalescence, I had to exercise my voice only with vowels. It is a medical rule after a long loss of voice.

I do believe that if you haven't learnt about sadness, you cannot appreciate happiness.

I have been so lucky to receive so much love from those who enjoy my music, that I feel I have to give as much of it as I can back to children.

When I was very young I was the ugly duckling. I had a lot of complexes. My sister was wonderful and I was nothing.

When you want something very dearly, you make the time.

The Berlin Wall go down, that was the most wonderful thing that could happen, absolutely. I celebrated with everybody in Berlin that day when the Wall was down.

One of the most wonderful memories in my life was when I sang at the Opera House in Sydney. I will never forget that. It is one of the most beautiful Houses I have ever sung in my life.

When I started to work with UNICEF, it was a new way of giving some love and care to the world.

UNICEF has made the most rewarding thing that I have ever done in my life.

It's nice to look good, but the most important thing is to be you.

All that is not God is death.

To take arms against a sea of troubles.

Tommy's [Gamble] an East Coast guy, so he kind of talks fast and in quick statements and phrases, so I understood him and he understood me, and we just hit it off.

Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now.

What I saw in that country, I saw in that country and I saw people respect him and his family and that's what I mean about that.

For me, just being on the cover of a magazine wasn't enough. I began to think, what value is there in doing something in which you have no creative input?

Instead of a 'Western Christianity,' we now witness a post-Christian West (in Europe) and a post-Western Christianity (in the global South). America is somewhere in between.

Giving your book to Hollywood is like turning your daughter over to a pimp.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again - as I always am when I write.