When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.

Put down your cell phones, put everything away, and feel your blood pulsing in you, feel your creative impulse, feel your own spirit, your heart, your mind. Feel the joy of being alive and free.

I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.

Trust is everything between two artists, or between subject and artist. You have to have trust or nothing good will come out of it.

When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven't published them.

If your label won't let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!

I'm very comfortable with being a female now but when I was a little kid I only wanted to be a boy. I didn't want to be a girl. I didn't feel like a man inside... being a boy was just cooler.