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.

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.

Who made you the center of the universe?

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.

What people think is relative just like who people love.

Now, you always know there's going to be some compromise when you're doing something for television, and especially network television.

We live in a fractured world. I've always seen it as my role as an artist to attempt to make wholeness.

I tried on 250 bathing suits in one afternoon and ended up havinglittle scabs up and down my thighs, probably from some of those withsequins all over them.

In antiquity there was only silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.

Is it not possible for us all to realize that the masses will never mount to freedom through murder?

What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!

If you love living, you try to take care of the equipment.

Personally, I don't really have a set style or look. It's pretty much what I feel like wearing that day, from a floral-print dress and high heels to ripped jeans and army boots.

Never, ever rest on your laurels. Today's laurels are tomorrow's compost.