I'm short and I have a big appetite. I can't do nothing just a little. It's the same with anything I do. It's very hard for me to love a little, have sex a little, to eat a little. I like to do everything, and I like to do it all the way that I want to do it.

We're afraid to live, because we're afraid of dying.

Everywhere I go, the kids call me 'the book lady.' The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the 'book lady' title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I've done something good with my life and with my success.

I've never had a divorce, but I've seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can't write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I'm able to kind of express it, or their joy.

You can't really make people be any different than what they are.

My life has been very full.

The only way I'd be caught without makeup is if my radio fell in the bathtub while I was taking a bath and electrocuted me and I was in between makeup at home. I hope my husband would slap a little lipstick on me before he took me to the morgue.