I dabble in the jazz world, which is male-­dominated. If you had two women playing together, it became a shtick. It becomes a "girl group," and it has to be something cutesy. That's hard to contend with.

Music is my only guide. I don't care if people pigeonhole me. Miles Davis is my hero. He covered Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson, and he didn't give a hoot about what the purists said.

Our leaders and Osama Bin Laden all claim to do the right thing in the name of God. I question that. I wonder if that God is worth the life of another human-being.

Allow the artist to finish the piece of work before you critique it.

It's hard being bisexual, omnisexual, multisexual, whatever you want to call it, when people have their agenda and expect you to just represent their agenda.

There's no hierarchy in suffering. I think songs that are transcendent are the ones where everyone can feel something from it, you know?

I stopped beating up on myself. I stopped asking myself why I didn't sell this number of records, why I don't have corporate sponsorship. I just don't buy into any of that anymore.