I bemoan the fact that all my famous friends have places in St. Bart's and I have to go to Montauk.

I think the minute you mention death, people run for the hills - unless it's heavy metal. People do not like death.

In the present world, this technological, psychotic, politicised, nonsensical world, you have to believe that the good guys are going to win! That evil will be banished somehow!

There's prejudice everywhere. I don't think the music industry is as bad as the movie industry. But I have taken a few hits over the years for my sexuality, and for being honest about my life. In the end, it's the music that rules the roost.

I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean, you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier, people die for them, people kill for them.

I've written songs for Shirley Bassey, Marianne Faithfull, and Linda Thompson. I sort of focus on these wonderful, aging divas. But maybe that's because I think I'm Christina Aguilera.

If I had had more of a strategic attitude towards how to reveal my sexuality, and if I'd even played with it a little more, I could have sold a lot more albums and been a lot more famous.