You don't leave people who can't defend themselves.

I don't want to sit on the sidelines and not value the gift of being here. Instead of the idea of time ticking away, the grains of sand running out, I try to think of time as giving me another grain of sand, another gift. So time passing is an accumulation, rather than a diminishing.

So close to touching freedom, then I hear the guards call my name

I'm the thing that fundamentalist Christians cringe over.

We all get intimidated by showing ourselves, for whatever reason, we think, If I really show who I am, and someone goes [pfftt] then it's gonna crush me. Well, it's not gonna crush me. It doesn't crush you if somebody does that- somebody will do that. Many times. And once you accept that that's not why you're doing it, you're doing it because that's your form of expression.

I became a mom at 37 and having a child has been an emancipation for me.

Everybody told me this 'girl on the piano' thing was never going to work.