The first question [American college kids] asked me was, 'What state is Kuwait in?' They thought Kuwait was in America.

If you've ever seen album covers for Arab female pop stars, it looks like the designer was paid five dollars to make them, and the extreme femaleness is astounding.

I'm fascinated by evil queens. They're very alluring and repellent at the same time, and I'm into that dichotomy.

The vast majority of women musicians function under singular names like 'Cher' 'Madonna'. They have to get married almost immediately to preserve their honour.

There are very few pop people I'm interested in working with.

I feel like there is an emphasis against teaching geography in American schools. Americans don't say, "I'm going to Germany." They say, "I'm going to Europe."

I was one of five out of 100 people who passed the test, which just proved to me how little Americans are taught geography.

I've never been to China. I only know what the West is telling me about China.

I had a story-telling mother; she's written novels and short stories. So I feel like maybe I'm staying alive by telling tales.

My music doesn't exist in a vacuum; there's a script and there's an actor and it's about to come together.

I still think you people need to be curious [in order to absorb the culture]. You need to search Uzbekistani pop music.

Great answers are found in tough questions. Never give up because of how hard the seed it

Thou shalt not tweet to be retweeted.

We're being asked to bring our humanness along in holding that love and compassion for ourselves as we make our way through this energetic time of transformation.

Political and social history are in my view two aspects of the same process. Social life loses half its interest and political movements lose most of their meaning if they are considered separately.

As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.

Use him wisely. Few have been given such a weapon by the gods or Fates before.

But that was in the days when they expected perils to come from without, and nothing made less sense by that time than a survival room buried in a house itself becoming one big coffin.

Our enemy, the devil, wants to control us, and his target is our will. The main way he tries to influence our will is through lying to us.

I am going to make sure that transformation happens, and I will do it in ways you cannot even imagine.

All New Years is to me is for taking down your dumb Christmas decorations. People who put up Christmas decorations, all they're saying is, 'Hey, we're not Jews.'