More than anything, I think everything about appearance is illusory. People see you, and they think they understand what you're projecting, but actually, they have their own interpretation of it, or they put a label on you.

There is a big difference between what I do onstage and what I do in my private life. I don't put my living room on magazine pages.

HIV/AIDS has no boundaries.

You're never quite sure where the song is going, because you might not find the word to rhyme with the end of the line. You have to find associative meaning to get you there. So it's rather like doing a crossword puzzle backwards. A kind of strange, three-dimensional, abstract crossword puzzle.

I was brought up in a tenement house in a working district. We didn't even have a bathroom! We had a gaslight in the hallway and a black-and-white TV.

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?"

Music is a great vehicle for communications, and I have a certain platform. I have an opportunity and I have to take it.