I grew up with the motto of "they can't kill you and eat you," and I still think that's right. You sure as hell can't! When it comes to speaking about my body makes other people uncomfortable but it doesn't make me uncomfortable. It makes them think more about themselves than it makes them judge me. I've always had this body and had to live with it. I've never been a little thing. I've been smaller but I've never been small, even as a baby. I've never had that window into that kind of world where people only talk to you because you're conventionally sexy.

I just like food too much, and I don't want to change. I spent so much of childhood trying to change, and I just got sick of it ... I don't want to look like Britney Spears, I just don't want to. She's hideous.

I feel sorry... for people who've had skinny privilege and then have it taken away from them. I have had a lifetime to adjust to seeing how people treat women who aren't their idea of beautiful and therefore aren't their idea of useful, and I had to find ways to become useful to myself.

I am tired of spending a little bit of money in a lot of pieces because they keep on falling apart.

I have been 130 lbs. as well as 215 lbs. I have had blond, strawberry blond, green, pink and purple hair, and none of that has ever exempted me from having lewd comments flung at me in the street.

I said to my teacher, 'I can't be a singer because I'm not pretty enough, and I'm fat.' And she looked at me and said, 'Tell that to Nell Carter, babe.' That changed my life forever!

This is how I feel about everything that's out of your control: once you make a record, it's not yours anymore. There's nothing you can do. It's the way I feel about political movements - both of those things grow on their own.