The world is a heartbreaking place, without any question.

I would like to see the gay population get on board with feminism. It's a beautiful organisation and they've done so much. It seems to me a no-brainer.

In the States, the HIV transmission from mother to child is almost completely preventable - the only mothers who really do transmit it are the ones who don't come in for care. If a mother in the United States or in Europe or in the UK comes to care and gets her medicines, she will have an HIV negative baby. Most people don't know that.

When you're that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you.

I think that the thing is, all those years of creating music or trying to express something of a dark shadow, an existential angst that I have felt most of my life and still feel today, to not be overwhelmed by it. Music, in a way, is a great vehicle, a means by which one can express all these somewhat contradictory feelings.

If you want to open a supermarket chain and put your face all around the globe, selling your baby and your dog, if it makes you happy, who am I to disagree, as the song goes. But it's not for me. I've always tried to keep my integrity and keep my autonomy.

I live in a world of possibility and opportunity. You look for the light. There's darkness everywhere but you look for that spot of light and you work your way towards it, and you do what it takes to get there.