I love the lower ranges of my new voice. I really enjoy that. It's a challenge, and I accept the challenge. I sort of enjoy it now to reach notes that maybe four years ago I couldn't reach. I don't mean to grumble about it. I'm past that critical period and have gone on to a whole new field. And we go everywhere. We travel around the world, and I learn songs from every place we go, and it's a joyful process.

I have heard more than once, 'Shut up and sing!' and I get it now.

Action is the antidote to despair.

We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.

To love means you also trust.

I think I would have had an easier time of it if I had had training much earlier. Because when I got to the training, it was in my late 30s and I already probably had every bad habit a singer could have. In fact, it still goes on. It's un-training those habits and retraining new ones - the breathing, the relaxation, the tongue, the lungs, the everything.

All of us are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival?