The word feminism needs to be taken back. It needs to be reclaimed in a way that is inclusive of men.

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.

Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody.

I'm not intensely private - I talk a great deal about my life and my work - I just don't play the game to excess.

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.

It's hard to tell how far women's individuality has come in the past twenty years.

I love to be individual, to step beyond gender.

I understand what it is for a woman to want to protect their children and give them the best they can.

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.

As a creative person, you just put something out into the consciousness of the society you live in.

I will go out of my way to avoid the shopping crowds and the extreme consumerism - I hate all that.

Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.

Life expectancy in many parts of Africa can be something around the age of thirty five to thirty eight. I mean you're very fortunate if you live to that age. In fact when I went to Uganda for the first time one of the things that occurred to me was that I saw very few elderly people.

I don't have any interest to go to Israel. I don't think I'd ever have a cause to go.

I've always tried to keep my integrity and keep my autonomy.

Churches, depending on their policy, can do fantastic work with people in the community.

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.

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 think my daughters have a pretty healthy self-awareness but I can't speak on their behalf.

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.

I'm a female but I have a masculine side and I'm not going to negate that part of myself.

I want people to understand me as a person with views, not just performing songs.

I don't want to be owned by a corporation and obliged to make a certain type of album. I want to be free.

I've never been a social person.