I never accepted the idea that I had to be guided by some pattern or blueprint.

I don't think a woman has to act like a man to show that she has strength.

But I'm a rock 'n' roll singer; that's my livelihood, my occupation.

I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.

I try to be a guide for people, to make their darkness bright and to make the pathway light, and never to condemn or control or criticize.

They shoulda called me Little Cocaine, I was sniffing so much of the stuff! My nose got big enough to back a diesel truck in, unload it, and drive it right out again.

I was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station at the time and I said, 'Awap bop a lup bop a wop bam boom, take 'em out!'