Just having medicine isn't equivalent to medical care. You need the health systems, you need to create the social framework so that people feel safe.

Men need to understand, and women too, what feminism is really about.

At times, I've been so absolutely terrified of what I was about to do, whether it was public speaking or performance. Whatever it was, sometimes it had me really, really shaking in my shoes, and I decided that I was going to do it no matter what. And, of course, the critic is there, and afterwards, there's this, "Was it good enough? Was it really all I wanted to say?"

I have different hats; I'm a mother, I'm a woman, I'm a human being, I'm an artist and hopefully I'm an advocate. All of those plates are things I spin all the time.

I've never been a social person. When I grew up, the other girls would all be combing their hair and exchanging lipstick, and I just couldn't do that group thing.

I grew up in a middle class household with parents, went to good schools, and never feared for anything, never wanted for anything that was really important. For all of us living in this world, all of us who have the resources, for us to not dedicate ourselves to giving something back, is to leave the world a lesser place.

I sang a lot as a little girl and entered competitions. I loved singing in choirs, but it was as I got older that I really found my voice.