Perfection often creates such a flawless surface that there's no place for the audience to enter into a piece, while the idiosyncrasies of individual style are like windows into the singer's heart.

My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.

I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.

For years, I had no time for exploratory travel.

Among the important realizations I had in my own days in the practice room was that if any one route to any one phrase didn't work after days of trying, then the exact opposite route should at least be explored, as well as every alternative in between, as counterintuitive as that often seemed.

I cannot imagine a more satisfying calling than my own: beauty, humanity, and history every day, combined with the cathartic joy of singing.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.