I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me.

For Christmas every year, my mother used to give me those cheap little diaries that would tell your horoscope and provide a little blank slot for each day.

When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.

I had gone to Paris to immerse myself in painting and I came back wholly involved in words and rhythms.

Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.

I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.

My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, to give them my energy and accept theirs. We're all in it together, and I respond emotionally as a worker, a mother, an artist, and a human being with a voice. We all have a voice. We have the responsibility to exercise it, to use it.