I don't mind a dirty girl. But what I find tragic is when we, as women, become not the subject of our own story but someone else's object.

Is your place in heaven worth giving up these kisses

It took the love of a good man [to heal]. When I was reverting back into my, let's say, perversions, he would say: 'Let's go get an ice cream. I am not going to enable you. If you can only come as a wanton woman for hire, because you feel dirty and shamed, then no. Women are goddesses.' And I know that and I believe that. I chose a man who believed that, too.

A lot of the carols were not as you hear them now.

Life is fleeting. It is to be enjoyed.

I'm really quite happy to say that in my early 40s, I wake up feeling sexy, and I can't say I felt that way in my late 20s.

I've always seen the songs as having a consciousness. Since I was two-and-a-half they would come to me from nowhere. I never thought that I was conjuring them by myself, and I was always grateful they would come and visit... They've always been very much alive. They don't have a physical body like we do but there seems to be an awareness.