Fame for fame's sake is toxic - some people want that, with no boundaries. It's unhealthy.

I can't understand why the front pages of newspapers can cover bird flu and swine flu and everybody is up in arms about that and we still haven't really woken up to the fact that so many women in sub-Saharan Africa - 60 percent of people in - infected with HIV are women.

I wouldn't have known when I was a teenager that when I was coming up to being a sixty-year-old woman that I'd be making music, I'd be recording music, talking about music, and incorporating my views on the world into the music-making. So it's a very rarefied place to be, and I'm very grateful for that.

The person who inspired me the most was a friend of mine, Anita Roddick. I know that Anita wasn't known to be an ardent feminist, but she truly was.

There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won't.

I would say that although my music may be or may have been part of the cultural background fabric of the gay community, I consider myself an outsider who belongs everywhere and nowhere... Being a human being is what truly counts. That's where you'll find me.

Money is a good thing and it's obviously useful, but to work only for money or fame would never interest me.