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.

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.

You have a bigger view, of something bigger than you, and you have to view that and take that in mind. At times you feel like despair rises up over hope, then other times you feel hopeful again.

Twerking is not feminism. Thats what I’m referring to. It’s not — it’s not liberating, it’s not empowering. It’s a sexual thing that you’re doing on a stage; it doesn’t empower you. That’s my feeling about it.

I want people to understand me as a person with views, not just performing songs.

You become really ugly when you become very superficial and self-obsessed.

Churches, depending on their policy, can do fantastic work with people in the community.