Grief isn't all tears.

Fate is like a secret friend that helps push you on into life.

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.

My father's mother was from Liverpool and she had this very beautiful English china. I only wanted to drink my cocoa out of my grandmother's cup and saucer.

Talking to god and coming back because that's what we have to do. That's your responsibility as a director, as an artist, as a performer. Your responsibility is back again to your people.

I'd never had people drive me around, and then all of a sudden, if a car didn't come, I'd say, "Where's my car?"

The film [Dream of Life], in the end, is life-affirming, and I think it's always useful for people to be reminded that no matter how rough things get, no matter what kind of twists and turns our lives can take, we can keep going, we can create something new.