I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money.

I really need to know I may just never see you again, or might as well You took advantage of a world that loved you well I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down I'm so tired of you, America.

The operas I listen to aren't in English, and I want to listen to my opera after I'm done with it. I want to have the desire to play it on the stereo. To me, the language is part of the mystery.

I could always escape into this demi-monde of homosexuality, which I feel really indebted to. It stopped me being a 'mummy's boy.'

I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered.

The moment something happens to one you love, it's twenty times more intense. You experience pain and enlightenment on a much vaster scale.

You had to be an over-the-top, demanding, dramatic figure in order to progress as a woman in Europe over the last few hundred years. Now people say, "You're being such a prima donna," meaning you're being hard to deal with or crazy. It's a bit sexist.