I always said to myself that the minute I thought I'd slipped, and not be the player I wanted to be, it was time for me to go.
Everyone who's in America spends the first few years not experiencing it. The person is frightened by the newness of the place and doesn't see things. Her emotional universe becomes the entire universe. And then when she thinks of home, her distance in space can seem like a distance in time.
I've been offered a couple of shows that have been very successful, but they weren't right for me. It has to be something I could be excited about for a long time.
Looking back Little Lulu was an early feminist, but at the time I just thought she was a really feisty developed comic strip character.
The first time I fell in love, I was in my 20s, and I loved someone right till I was 31. And then I felt that emotion died within me. I wasn't feeling alive at all.
Around the time I graduated from high school, I decided better to underachieve and have friendship than to overachieve and be alone.
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
The first wedding dress I ever made was for myself. It was at a time when I had my business up and running, but it was still very early days, and I thought, 'This is my moment to do whatever I like.'
The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.
Longevity conquers scandal every time.
There was a time I was very much blaming the way I felt on L.A, that it was a vacuum of creativity, of humor or anything organic, and I was really angry at the place. But then today I feel completely different - I love L.A.!
A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.
I can remember exactly where I was when I saw 'The Matrix' for the first time.
Let me tell you something. I'm a funny girl, and I gave birth to what? Funny. I can't help it. It just is what it is, and my kids have been around my antics so long, it kind of rubs off a little bit. So when it comes to what you see, you only see what is really manifesting in our lives at the time.
Usually, in any revolution people are focused on who wants to have the most power. But the most important thing is the laws that are written during that time.
It's a cruel, heartless world out there in commercial rock 'n' roll, and when you take as much time off as we did, eight years, booking agents don't know if you'll draw.
If we focus on our health, including our inner health, our self-esteem, and how we look at ourselves and our confidence level, we'll tend to be healthier people anyway, we'll tend to make better choices for our lives, for our bodies, we'll always be trying to learn more, and get better as time goes on.
I will never forget experiencing Venice for the first time. It feels like you are transported to another time - the art, music, food and pure romance in the air is like no other place.
O Christ, on you the many-eyed cherubim are unable to look because of the glory of your countenance, yet out of your love you accepted spittle on your face. Remove the shame from my face, and grant me to have an unashamed face before you at the time of prayer.
Spending time on the floor is really important. It's great to work out of an office, but working the store gives you contact with the customer.
When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.
The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to be free to do the very best that he can.
Every time I went on stage I was so terrified I almost threw up.
Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.
We may not like our times or many aspects of the time we live in but that is not the fault of art as such.
We are constantly reminding them that they are in a competition. I had a word with all my contestants and I know Kelly Rowland had a word with hers. It's reality check time.
I don't work with Sia every day; it depends what we do, whether we do performances or music videos, so the schedule is weird, but when we're off, we always try to see each other in between. We just hang out; we went to brunch one time, but for the most part I go to her house, and we eat and watch TV.
I think when you get past your second album, it all becomes something of a routine. So you have to struggle against that, find a way of making what you do sound fresh and new each time.
I hid the fact that I had an aneurysm for a very long time. I was embarrassed, and I just felt like no one needed to know because it made me look weak. Who would of thought someone my age, at 23, had a brain aneurysm?
When I was 21, I got into a motorcycle accident while traveling in Europe and I had to lie around a lot in the aftermath, which was really the first time in my life that I became really focused and inspired to write.
My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she'd seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country - all around the world - who show that type of fortitude.
I think it's phenomenal and expected that Paralympians will take on able bodied people more and more. In dressage, it happens all the time. But there are very few adaptions, and they are never allowed to give you an advantage.
Being fat worked, and I think that was what was confusing for me for a long time in my career.
Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality.
The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it's an example of freedom from religion.
Most of the time, the things that really change the world exist for something fundamentally selfish and then the world-changing ends up being a side-effect of that.
