Who made you the center of the universe?

I like pastels and lighter shades on darker skins. I feel like it lifts everything and accentuates being chocolate.

I respect hippos. They just look the way they do; they can't do anything about it, but they don't seem bothered.

I love church buildings, particularly cathedrals, and I like living in spaces that remind me of music or evoke that creative energy.

My songs are very personal, which means they are fantastically therapeutic to write, but performing them night after night is emotionally draining.

Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.

My parents encouraged us to commit to things, so if we wanted to learn an instrument, it was all the grades and all the theory.

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

I always said when I was younger, I wanted to write film music, and I think that's what my ultimate dream is.

I really love jazz, but I will never be a jazz musician as much as I dream. But, I think that the jazz music I love is there in my music.

You don't have to aim to be the best of everything, thinking that one day you're going to be the top of the world; I don't think it exists.

Some wounds are so deep, that if you were to reach in their depth, you wouldn't find a way back.

Individual effort is good but collective effort is better. We need a NETWORK of nation builders

Even the simple act of tuning the radio to a music program can lift our spirits and show the world "I'm not going to give up.

The single thing all women need in the world is inspiration, and inspiration comes from storytelling.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man but for this to endure it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

And you should never cut your hair 'cos I love the way you flick it off your shoulders

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

When you're up for an award at the Oscars, try as you might, it's hard to concentrate on the show.

Things like that become a blur - shot at some soundstage, somewhere - that's as much as I can remember.

Art's development should be dialectical and not metaphysical.