To tell you the truth, I never listen to opera at home.

I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.

I would just like to say that opera is no longer about fat people in breastplates shattering wine glasses.

That was when I realised that music is the most profound, magical form of communication there is.

I do hope that our spring will be starting shortly and we will all be able to enjoy some sunshine again.

Opera is credible drama now, and it costs less than going to a football match. What have you got to lose?

The musical heritage of Yorkshire is deep and wide.

I'm engaging my diaphragm as I'm speaking to you right now.

There are a lot of unseen elements to having a successful singing career.

It worries me that young singers think you can shortcut the training and go straight to fame and fortune, and programmes like Pop Idol have encouraged that.

I do a lot of vocal hygiene.

Loneliness is everything it's cracked up to be.

We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.

I would love to work with my sister in a movie one day - like play sisters or something like that, because we've never been on-screen at the same time together.

Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind - listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody.

We must demand more not from each other, but more from ourselves

Somebody said us artists have trouble with success because art is derived from struggle. I disagree with that, because truely doing your art is success, whether you make money from it or not.

Plotinus thought that the entire world has a single soul. He also thought that each animal and plant and of course human, has an individual soul.

In the FA Cup, you always have to expect the unexpectable

It would be nice if all that exuberance and abundance was connected to a deep ethos of planetary responsibility.

Stern daughter of the voice of God! O Duty! if that name thou love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring and reprove.