R&B is the one thing that has influenced every kind of music. Every artist that there is, from those that are sung the most to Adele - you know, she was so influenced by so many R&B artists and soul music - it's clear in her writing that that's where it comes from.

Some boys accepted me, some didn't. And my family had comments made to them. Brazil is still a very macho society, and sports are mainly for boys, so people would say to them: 'What is this girl doing? Why is she always out there in the soccer games with the boys?'

Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones.

I'm a jewelry girl. I became with friends with designer Irene Neuwirth a few years ago. At that point, I just used to wear my wedding rings. Very low key. Now, if I could, I'd be draped from head to toe in her jewelry all the time. Everything she makes is beautiful.

I went to see 'Kinky Boots' to see my friend Billy Porter in his groundbreaking performance. But while backstage, I was hoping for a chance to meet this young, dynamic performer Annaleigh Ashford. Her comic timing was brilliant. And she is obviously a triple threat.

Matangi's mantra is aim, which is MIA backwards. She fights for freedom of speech and stands for truth, and lives in the ghetto because her dad was the first person in Hindu mythology who came from the 'hood, but had gained enlightenment through not being a Brahmin.

She was obsessed with French and Swedish cinema. I also remember our mother showing us 'Gone With the Wind' very early on. She absolutely loved Vivien Leigh, so it must have been a formative experience for me, thinking, 'Oh, maybe one day I'll be like Vivien Leigh.'

There's nothing masculine about being competitive. There's nothing masculine about trying to be the best at everything you do, nor is there anything wrong with it. I don't know why a female athlete has to defend her femininity just because she chooses to play sports.

I met Gemma, my wife, when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for her to meet me. Later, she started coming to my concerts, but I only got to know her well after her mother died. I rang to see how she was, and that's how it started.

I haven't been baptised. My dad's not in the church and is not a religious person. My mum is more spiritual - she does Thai-chi and goes to Stonehenge and things like that. I'm proud to be pagan. Finland is not really a religious country. I'm still looking for my god.

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.

Very often, people talk about mothers, and they think that mother has to lose her sexuality. Mother has to be plain. Mothers cannot be exciting. Mother should not be up on what's going on; she shouldn't know the jargon of the day. And I just find that so old-fashioned!

I'm a very consistent leader, and people won't find me different day to day. You won't have to have the sort of conversation that says, 'How is she today? Is this a good day to have this conversation?' You won't find that situation with me. I treat people with respect.

Years ago, I did an interview about my mother for a publication called 'Info' magazine, and during that interview I told the reporter about my mother's leiomyosarcoma. She had had a hysterectomy, but at the time of it, the doctors didn't even think to look for sarcoma.

I like 'Goodbye My Lover' because it's a really personal song and I recorded it in my landlady's bathroom in Los Angeles. She had a piano in there and for me listening back to it, it actually sounds like the voice I hear in my head. It's so close to what I can imagine.

When a nominee for the Supreme Court, one of only nine lifetime appointments, makes an overtly brazen racist comment about tens of millions of American citizens, we don't need lectures. What we need to do is to confront her with what she said and what it says about her.

My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom, my dad, they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse, my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.

Artemis women often have difficult childhoods. She's the kid who seeks comfort in the woods, or animals, or books. If trapped in an authoritarian family, she blends in to get by - but keeps a fierce autonomy inside her head and heart, looking to the day she breaks free.

She may hide it, but Clinton is a policy nerd. Ask about microfinance, and she'll talk your ear off. Mention early childhood interventions, and she will gush about obscure details of a home visitation experiment in Elmira, N.Y., that dramatically improved child outcomes.

The most beautiful girl in the room not only gets the guy, she lands the job, gets better service at a restaurant, rises through the social ranks before her friends. Doors open for the beautiful woman that may not for a female who is twice as smart but half as beautiful.

The Infinite cannot be measured. The plan of Nature is so immense, but she has no plan, no scheme, but to go on and on forever. What is size, what is time, distance, to the Infinite? Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end.

I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in 'Teardrops On My Guitar,' and she was like, 'Isn't this song great?' And everyone was like, 'Who's Taylor Swift?' And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.

I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries.

I am closest to my mother, as she is my rock, my pillar of strength, and my world. Not only has she stood by me through all times - happy, sad, and otherwise - but there have even been moments when I had completely lost hope, and her immense belief in me had lifted me up.

You see the genius that Whitney Houston has as an interpreter of material, and you realize why genius can be applied to only a few interpretive performers. She finds meaning and depth and soulfulness in a song that often the writer and composer never really knew was there.

I met Rubina at a friend's house during Ganpati. I checked her out as she looked resplendent in a sari. You generally see girls in western clothes and then you get to see that someone can look so stunning in a sari as well. So I saw her and I was like, wow she's beautiful.

I remember when I first saw Whoopi Goldberg doing standup, and she was wearing a sheet on her head, basically pretending to be this little white girl with long luxurious blonde hair. Everyone can relate to that. It's an oral history of black women's lives through laughter.

What was very interesting to me about Clementine Hunter's work is that she couldn't read or write, and she has recorded history of the plantation life and the southern part of the U.S. - the cotton harvests, pecan picking, washing clothes, funerals, marriages - in pictures.

I look at my little girl and I wonder what she's going to be and what she's going to do and what is it that leads girls certain directions in life. I think a lot of that goes back to what kind of father they had, and so it makes me want to be the best dad I can possibly be.

I've been dealing with racism since I was a little kid! My dad's super black, from Puerto Rico. Then my mom's super white - she's Puerto Rican too, but she grew up in Milwaukee. As a Latino in the U.S. I've seen how we are treated differently based on the color of our skin.

My family went to Toronto to visit relatives when I was 13 or 14. It was the first time we had ever been abroad. This was the early Eighties, and I remember the impossible glamour of air travel - my mum spending days trying to decide what she was going to wear on the plane.

Anyone who works on a quilt, who devotes her time, energy, creativity, and passion to that art, learns to value the work of her hands. And as any quilter will tell you, a quilter's quilting friends are some of the dearest, most generous, and most supportive people she knows.

I was at a restaurant in Glasgow, and I was walking down the stairs. A woman passed me and said, 'Oh my God, what are you doing here?' I didn't know who she was, and I was like, 'Sorry?' She goes, 'Oh no, sorry, I follow you on Twitter. I just didn't expect to see you here.'

I believe every woman's body is beautiful in its own way. I have never understood that just because a woman has thick thighs, she is considered fat. For so long, I've been around in the modeling world and have tried to break that barrier. But I think now it's turning around.

The abduction of a child is a tragedy. No one can fully understand or appreciate what a parent goes through at such a time, unless they have faced a similar tragedy. Every parent responds differently. Each parent copes with this nightmare in the best way he or she knows how.

One of the biggest misconceptions that a woman has is that a man has to accept her the way she is. No, we don't. I don't know who told you that. We like the bright and shiny. If you stop wearing the makeup, stop putting on nail polish, stop wearing high heels, you'll lose us.

I have lived with passion and in a hurry, trying to accomplish too many things. I never had time to think about my beliefs until my 28-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a coma for a year, and I took care of her at home until she died in my arms in December of 1992.

On a day-to-day level, I love watching my kids accomplish the little things that seem trivial but are really milestones: seeing my son hit a baseball or watching my daughter draw something that actually looks like what she says she's drawing. Or hearing them say 'I love you.'

I'd be stupid not to take into consideration that there are certain things people will not consider me for because my name is Lopez. And I know I can do any kind of role. I don't want anybody to say, Oh, she can't pull this off. So those are barriers that you have to overcome.

I would like to work with my ideal type, Song Hye Kyo sunbae. Although she has an elegant and classic style, her charisma is also strong, and her acting talent is outstanding. If we act together, I think I could learn a lot from her. But I'd probably be nervous a lot of times.

I really like IU... I just think she has the most adorable everything. Her voice is beautiful; she's talented at writing music, guitar, everything. I fell in love with her when I watched her on that drama 'Dream High.' That's probably when I first really fell in love with her.

We used to have prawn tempura: that was my mother's favourite dish. But she had to go out to work instead of my father, so she couldn't find the time to cook nice meals. So we ate more modern food: a lot of frozen and instant food. But I never complained about it to my mother.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She's sort of become my fairy godmother.

I want to talk about my very first play, when I was in eighth grade. One day, my English teacher, Mrs. Baker, announced that we were going to read 'On Borrowed Time' out loud in class. I was a mediocre student; I was terrified that she was going to call on me, so I hid my head.

I live in Paris, a city where you have a lot of stylish women, so I learned a lot by observing the women in the street. But my mother was always a big influence as well; she is always very feminine in high heels and perfectly cut dresses, with perfect makeup but never too much.

When I was 16, I was watching '101 Dalmatians,' and my mom never let me bleach my hair, so I told her I was going to dye my hair like Cruella De Vil; she didn't believe me. I came home with my hair like this, and she didn't talk to me for, like, a week. It was really hilarious.

I am very proud of my mom and consider her the most courageous woman I know. With perseverance, sacrifice and hard work, she raised a family of Olympic athletes and gave us the tools and the spirit to succeed. That is something that my brothers and I will always be thankful for.

My mom is an actress, but she never really pushed me into it, and it was never something I thought I would be doing. She was very happy I decided to, but she certainly doesn't offer me criticism because she knows I'd tell her to shut up! Nobody wants to hear that from their mum!

Fereydun, that's my dad's name. My grandmother, my dad's mom, when she was pregnant, she was dating a man from Persia, a Persian gentleman. It wasn't his child, but he was still very supportive and said, 'Hey, this is a great name,' and so it stuck. So that's what she named him.

About 13-14 years ago, I went back to my alma mater, Fairfax High School, and ran into the music teacher. She invited me to come speak to the kids about the viability of a music career. When I went into the room where I used to play every day in a big orchestra, they had nothing!

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