I always sang. I wanted to be in a band with my sister, and I was, at 11. At 12, I started writing seriously, and that was my pacifier all through high school - that and painting.

You know, I've been playing with my hair color ever since I was nine.

I come from a line of great Sicilian women, and their mentality is to endure and push through to the other side.

I don't know many people who don't have somebody in their family who's a part of the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community. It's not like they're aliens or outsiders. This is family.

I've always wondered what it would be like if somebody from outer space landed with three heads. Then all of a sudden everybody else wouldn't look so bad, huh? Well, OK you're a little different from me but, hey, ya got one head.

I learned jazz; that comes from blues. I learned rock; that comes from blues. I learned pop; that comes from blues. Even dance, that comes from blues, with the answer-and-response.

You know, I do speak the Queens English. It's just the wrong Queens that's all. It's over the 59th Street Bridge. It's not over the Atlantic Ocean.