All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.

Hearing is a form of touch. You feel it through your body, and sometimes it almost hits your face.

My mother has never been involved in my professional life. I am very close to my mother but we keep it on a mother-daughter basis and not a work-related basis.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

Any time I have to get on a plane and leave my kids for a few days, it’s kind of tortuous.

It’s not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix.

I wouldn’t consciously pursue trying to make something for the charts. It’s just not in my scope now. I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.

Frank Lloyd Wright… his things were beautiful but not very functional.

I start with the subject matter I want to write about. Then I make a musical base for that and create an atmosphere with the music. Once I’ve done that, the lyrics come last.

My sole focus as far back as I can remember was all about my dream to become a singer.

I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.

Disco is just pop music you can dance to.

My favorite time of day is to get up and eat leftovers from dinner, especially spicy food.

I’d love to a duet with Luther Vandross.

I couldn’t take pictures of green rolling hills.

So I concentrated on the rhythmic side of things, and therefore left a lot of holes. I didn’t want to use big pad chords everywhere. All of the songs are built up of small melodies...

Prince used to call me up 3am in the morning and invite me to hear some of his new songs.

I had demons and felt socially inept.

Even if your job is a professional singer, we still dork out at home.

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.

I’m a terrible dancer. The worst.

I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time.

You are talking to a man who can only play a plastic keyboard. Give me anything weighted and I’ve had it. I haven’t got the strength in my fingers to push them down. So I...

Proving I’m a good mother is the one achievement I’m most proud of. It’s brought out the best in me.

I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll.

Even though I pretty much made my own decisions early on, when I was younger I tended to overbook my life.