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.

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

I think that you can only be true to yourself. Nobody can live up to other people's expectations. You will always let them down. There will always be something they won't like about you.

You wouldn't find a Joni Mitchell on 'X Factor;' that's not the place. 'X Factor' is a specific thing for people that want to go through that process - it's a factory, you know, and it's owned and stitched-up by puppet masters.

I didn't want to be perceived as a girly girl on stage.

Humankind seems to have an enormous capacity for savagery, for brutality, for lack of empathy, for lack of compassion.

Medicine comes with hope: the hope of having a healthy child, the hope of being able to raise your family.