Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have a calling in my soul, if you like, to try to make my life in some way worthwhile. What is the value of my existence?
One wouldn't want to have the same dilemmas at 50 as one had at 15. And indeed I don't. I have a very different take on life.
It's not fair to compare one artist to another because they all come with their own sort of elements to the picnic, you know.
Anita Roddick was amazing. Her presence in a room was full of light, and everything she worked to achieve still resonates now.
I am a communicator; that seems to be my natural place. And I'll always be passionate about the world, because it's so bonkers.
I've thought about what is an alternative word to feminism. There isn't one. It's a perfectly good word. And it can't be changed.
I don't take myself as seriously as some people think, and I'd hate anyone to think I was preaching. That's the last thing I want.
Women's issues have always been a part of my life. My goal is to bring the word 'feminism' back into the zeitgeist and reframe it.
There is a big difference between what I do onstage and what I do in my private life. I don't put my living room on magazine pages.
I'm not really keen on comebacks. Eurythmics was an incredible thing. When I look back on that work, I feel very satisfied with it.
Fear paralyses you - fear of flying, fear of the future, fear of leaving a rubbish marriage, fear of public speaking, or whatever it is.
As a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.
I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike.
I sang a lot as a little girl and entered competitions. I loved singing in choirs, but it was as I got older that I really found my voice.
Fundamentally, we are all in the same place: we're born, we live, and we're going to die. In between, we'll have joy and we'll have sadness.
This is the book I never read ~ These are the words I never said ~ This is the path I'll never tread ~ These are the dreams I'll dream instead
Why are we not valuing the word 'feminism' when there is so much work to be done in terms of empowerment and emancipation of women everywhere?
There's a lot of women's organisations, but they're all working separately. If you get people together, as a collaborative voice, it's strong.
If we value what we've inherited for free - from other women - surely it's right morally and ethically for us to wake up and say, 'I'm a feminist. '
The person who inspired me the most was a friend of mine, Anita Roddick. I know that Anita wasn't known to be an ardent feminist, but she truly was.
I used to be obsessed about how I presented myself. I didn't want other people dressing me because I didn't want to be treated like a clothes horse.
Just having medicine isn't equivalent to medical care. You need the health systems, you need to create the social framework so that people feel safe.
Green is a label for a certain attitude to life, a certain kind of respect that one might have for the very source of things that we take for granted.
I was brought up in a tenement house in a working district. We didn't even have a bathroom! We had a gaslight in the hallway and a black-and-white TV.
I would like to see the gay population get on board with feminism. It's a beautiful organisation and they've done so much. It seems to me a no-brainer.
When I was younger I wish I'd known that what often seemed to be the 'end of the world' often turned out to be a positive and transformative experience!
When you're that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you.
The general population still thinks HIV is something that came in the 80s and went away, or that it only affects the gay population or intravenous drug users.
I don't think feminism is about the exclusion of men but their inclusion... we must face and address those issues, especially to include younger men and boys.
We would like to see the virtual elimination of the transmission of [HIV] from mother to child by 2015. ... We believe it can be achieved with political will.
Although I have lived in London, I have never really considered London my home because it was always going to be a stopping-off point for me, and it has been too.
I've never been a social person. When I grew up, the other girls would all be combing their hair and exchanging lipstick, and I just couldn't do that group thing.
I have different hats; I'm a mother, I'm a woman, I'm a human being, I'm an artist and hopefully I'm an advocate. All of those plates are things I spin all the time.
A lot of music you might listen to is pretty vapid, it doesn't always deal with our deeper issues. These are the things I'm interested in now, particularly at my age.
There's always darkness around, and if you focus on the darkness, you don't know where to go. But if you direct yourself at the light - there it is! It's right there.
We're not interested to know the real heroes. We're really more interested in the villains, actually, and they seem to thrive, and it continues to be business as usual.
If I hadn't been a singer, I might have been a photographer or an artist. But it's singing I love. I sing all the time, and I feel really good that I've expressed myself.
I think the whole experience of being a human being on the planet is such a mystery, to be honest. Trying to figure out one's purpose and [asking] "What is it all about?"
You just decide what your values are in life and what you are going to do, and then you feel like you count, and that makes life worth living. It makes my life meaningful.
If you come face to face with some really challenging situations and tragic circumstances - you are going in there with a purpose. You are not going in there as a tourist.
To try to help people have babies in a healthy way and to celebrate the process of delivering a child which will be healthy is, I think, almost the best part of healthcare.
Charity is a fine thing if it's meeting a gap where needs must be met and there are no other resources. But in the long term we need to support people into helping themselves.
I mean, I'm 48 years old and I've been through a lot in my life - you know, loss, whether it be death, illness, separation. I mean, the failed expectations... We all have dreams.
I'm very intrigued that in this culture of reality television and celebrity - which is an enormous industry and generates billions and billions of dollars - we're so resourceful.
Having children, they're not your property. They need to figure out their own views. I think my daughters have a pretty healthy self-awareness, but I can't speak on their behalf.
The future hasn't happened yet and the past is gone. So I think the only moment we have is right here and now, and I try to make the best of those moments, the moments that I'm in.
My issue with the state of women became incredibly stimulated when I was visiting developing countries and it became obvious that women bore the brunt of so many things in society.
Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment, although most of us don't even have the faintest idea about their lives, their trials, their hardships or challenges.
The inner world is very potent for me - I don't ascribe to any God or Jesus or Buddha - I just have a sense of it and revere it along with the natural world and human consciousness.
There needs to be a shift in consciousness; there needs to be an absolute wake-up call before society can actually make the kind of incredibly significant changes that need to happen.