The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.

I know I'm different. Even when I think about an acting career, there are so many limited roles to begin with. I have the ability to be Spanish, Indian, Italian, black, Persian. What roles do I see that compliment that?

I've really fired a lot of managers that had that mindset or publicists that had that mindset of, 'Oh, you need to go on a date with this person because it's going to help album sales.' No thank you. That's not my flow.

I grew up in a bus, traveled with various circuses and freak shows. I was a trapeze artist, and that was my dream. We just traveled the whole world, me and my mom and my little brothers and sisters. It was an adventure.

Jesus Christ will be the leader of an intergalactic earth evacuation. We're getting some earth leaders up there to check the mother ship. The Bible says that the sky will be glorious and Christ will come back to us all.

New York is very intense. Every time I go back to New York, I'm starting from scratch. You could have all these achievements - records, a tour - and then you get home and get back to the basics. It whips you into shape.

It takes a different mindset to be successful in anything; that's why there's not a lot of super duper successful people, because it's guys I know who may be ten times more talented than me, but they don't work as hard.

Michael Jackson was a constant perfectionist. He loved watching other people do what they did best and then taking that and adding his own little twist to it. He loved to pull the best from the best and make it his own.

It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people.

My idea is to bring out the inner child that my generation has inside, which does not go to sleep because of so much angst over the day-to-day routine. With so much going on, you start tuning out emotions and surprises.

I think people in general that don't surf, have a fascination with it. Its definitely much more than a sport or activity, its a way of life. There is a culture that surrounds it and I think people are intrigued by that.

My music is very innovative, in a class by itself. Nobody else is saying anything of value. What I'm trying to do is get people to think, to alter their consciousness. It's not your typical platinum formula for success.

People call me stupid for treating you like a queen, but I dont even worry `cause you`re my unforeseen.And I hope that you`ll be with me, if only in my dreams. But here you are next to me and you`re glad, or so it seems.

My number-one goal is to never feel like I'm strictly defining myself. The minute I feel like I'm doing that as anything - as theatrical, as feminist, as songwriter - I feel like the minute I name it, I'm stuck in a box.

In fact when Sweet Honey was ten years old it was too big for me to run, and I knew it, but I ran it for another thirteen years because I couldn't convince other people to really do it. And this year, I'm not running it.

In this country, don't forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There's no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it's the worst kind of hell for those who love you.

I was only in the public eye because I was annoying. You know how neurotic people may ask for one thing when they may really want another thing? It was like I was asking for attention, but I didn't really want attention.

My relationships usually last a few years. When I'm involved with a man, other men are fascinated with me, but the minute I'm single again, half of those men disappear because they don't have the balls to really want me.

There's a witch under this hair. The red lips are - I don't want to call them "armor," but they're the clothes of my character, and I'm in the business of entertainment. Wearing red lipstick helps get me into that world.

If I were you I'd promise to live life for all it's worth, take all you've been given and leave your mark upon this Earth. Trust your heart to show you everything you need...and if you were you, I'd fall in love with me.

This illness made it impossible for me to give my best effort to our audience, but now that it's been identified, I'm looking forward to a complete, quick recovery and to get back out there with John as soon as possible.

What a strange thing - that musicians grant permission to places like Ubuweb, and then because it's free, it'll probably be listened to more often than something that is still wrestling with this idea of making a profit.

People are gravitating towards Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders because they are doing their own thing. I think people are trying to cut out the middle man and just get to the source and get away from Washington politics.

In country music the lyric is important and the melodies get a little more complex all the time, and you hear marvelous new singers who are interested in writing and interpreting a lyric and in all form of popular music.

What are you gonna fill your life up with when you don't have that ultimate satisfaction or peace in your life? You try to fill it up with wealth, pleasure, honor, power, sex, drugs and Rock and Roll to try to feel good.

Like everyone else in this world, I have had struggles. There's disappointment and obstacles in everybody's life. I feel like I was writing 'Second Chance' not just for myself, but also for the people who have struggled.

Fifty - it's going to be for the rest of my life. I'm going to count myself as a 50-year-old, sing like I'm 50, and act like I am, too. That's how I feel, and I believe if you have that frame of mind, it keeps you young.

When somebody is making a movie about your life, that's different. A show is a live performance. Things are going to go wrong. You are going to get away with things. A movie is indelible. A movie is through a microscope.

I just continue to look for different material, great material, as good as I can find, and try to go in there and do as good a job as I can do in making it a record. That's all you can expect. That's all that you can do.

Roger Miller opened a lot of people's eyes to the possibilities of country music, and it's making more impact now because it's earthy material: stories and things that happen to everyday people. I call it 'people music.'

Actually, have you ever heard Sylvester's live version of 'Mighty Real' that was recorded in San Francisco? If I listen to that, I never fail to get goose bumps all over. I go crazy. That song just makes me so emotional.

Human mobile devices that may come in handy and can be used anywhere include: prayer, meditation, a good attitude, compassion, kindness, humor, laughter, patience, love and a smile. Customize to personal style and taste.

The first time I smoked weed was with Demi [Lovato] and Miley [Cyrus]. I must have been 17 or 18. They kept saying, ‘Try it! Try it!’ so I gave it a shot, and it was all right. I don’t even smoke weed that often anymore.

I have definitely written a happy song about someone and then we ended up splitting up, but you have to put those kind of things to the back of your mind and tell yourself that it's a good song and it works on the album.

The voice muscle doesn't last forever. I have a lot of friends who are classical and opera singers. My friend Beverly Sills stopped singing in her 50s, so I'm careful with mine. But I'll keep going as long as it lets me.

I just think you would never kill and cut up a human to wear so why do it to animals? I just think it's horrible, I would never wear fur, although I guess if it was a really vintage piece you might just get away with it.

Certain nights, when everything's perfect and we have thousands of people partying their asses off, I break my rule and have a drink onstage. I've never done a show drunk. Well, I take that back. In the early days I did.

All the Disney Princess films are iconic and beautiful, so to have been a part of all that was really a wonderful part of my life. It's all fabulous, too, that I have a daughter that appreciates the whole Princess thing.

One day, it hit me that music is my calling. I just started playing and writing music. How, I don't know. I just started doing it, and then this big voice came out of my mouth. And it felt like I was releasing something.

Finally I started really opening up as a songwriter and an interpreter and taking songs from all kind of genres and stripping them down to just lyrics and the story inside the lyrics, and trying to make them really mine.

Because I've been around forever and ever, like wallpaper, people ask me for secrets... it's the same with my skin care range; that's out of necessity. As soon as I saw the first signs, I bought everything in the market.

The bike that I've been riding is a Big Ripper. It' an SE Racing 29" bike that Famous [Stars & Straps] did a collaboration with and Travis [Barker] gave to me. So that's the bike that I cruise around on and bunny-hop on.

I just don't really get to watch a lot of movies, like recently at least I haven't been able to but I did watch The Exorcist for the first time ever, recently, and it didn't scare me like I thought it was gonna scare me.

Women are God's last creation. You suppose he's saying, "What should I do to follow this?" Well, it's really a head -scratcher. I think women are absolutely wonderful. I think this world is going to be governed by women.

As hackneyed and cliche as it sounds, follow your heart. We are all given intuition and instincts, and sometimes it is hard to follow those instincts with the fears and pressures that surround us - but you have to do it.

There was a point in the '80s when I looked out at my audience and I saw people that - were I not on the stage - they'd sooner slug me as they walked by me on the sidewalk. And I realized that I was way beyond the choir.

I have a lot of scripts that come my way, and some of them take a bit longer to read than others. There are a lot of things that I have to pass on because I'm just not into it, and sometimes the story is slightly forced.

Most performers reinvent themselves. Madonna, Michael Jackson, P. Diddy. They reinvent themselves into different kinds of images. Elvis Presley was always himself, an original, and he never tried to be anything but that.

The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and from the court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land.

Being independent isn't as flashy as a lot of people may think. It's a lot of hard work; its a lot of investing your own money. And to creatively time to make your day work - it's on you to make it work, and no one else.

Share This Page