I was very strongly influenced by women's magazines and I really believed tha a woman could not be married and raise a family and have a successful career all at the same time.

I worked with my parents on the stage in production numbers since I was 4, but I never really gave much thought to being a performer on my own until I was 12 or 13.

It took so long to make it in America. The year I arrived was a bad year for women singers, the record company told me. So I starved. I lived in a hotel so dreadful I can't even talk about it.

I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore, and I know too much to go back and pretend.

If you tell people your ambitions, they usually laugh at you. When I told my girlfriends when I was 12 that I was going to Hollywood, they all laughed. And here I am!

My audience are the same people who bought my albums years ago. These people are now married, with their own homes, their own families. If I'm in concert, I get people now who bring their kids.

Most of the people I know in show business don't need anybody pushing them at all. They're extremely aggressive.