If I hadn't been a singer, I might have been a photographer or an artist. But it's singing I love. I sing all the time, and I feel really good that I've expressed myself.

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

We all come from women, and there's something extraordinary about the mothers who raised us.

As a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.

When you get to be nearly 60, you do take stock. You don't know what's around the corner.

I don't take myself as seriously as some people think, and I'd hate anyone to think I was preaching. That's the last thing I want.

I identify with other women because of my gender, and I identify with other women if they are mothers because I'm a mother, too. It's very simple. It's nothing complicated, it's not rocket science. It's about empathy. It's about understanding that what happens with one person is potentially what happens to you, and seeing yourself in someone else's shoes. Fundamentally, we are all in the same place: we're born, we live, and we're going to die. In between, we'll have joy and we'll have sadness.