My mother was devoted to helping people - with my father's money! - who had great voices but didn't have the financial means to study music. He and my mum gave away dozens of music scholarships, and my mum opened a school in town, introduced opera to children and created fantastic programmes.

...you have to understand that motherhood has to be your priority. It's important work.

There is an Arabic writer who wrote philosophy and poetry and who brought all religions and all the world together.

There is a subconscious way of taking violence as a way of expression, as a normality, and it has a lot of effects in the youth in the way they absorb education and what they hope to get out of life.

What you need is one black dress I call Plan B. It doesn't have to be fabulous, it just looks good, covers up the problems and is neutral enough for dinner, business, a date, a funeral. You don't overwear it, you don't overwash it, because the Plan B is - gold.

If you're paralyzing your face in your 20s and 30s, you're not exercising the muscles that give it strength. My feeling is, laugh, cry, move your face.

If you give me any problem in America I can trace it down to domestic violence. It is the cradle of most of the problems, economic, psychological, educational.