I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.

My scar is beautiful. It looks like an arrow.

One of the things that has always motivated me to write is the desire to get it out and look at it in an objective way, so that it doesn't cause me any serious pain by staying inside.

The models for me were more the folk-rock singers of the '60s and '70s.

Sometimes, but the year I lived in France I started to write songs.

You usually can't tell what's inspiring until you look back on it.

You know, people want to honor me, and on the one hand I just don't want to be a poster child; but on the other, I want to do something classy and great - something where the residuals will go to the cause.

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

Then I went through a big Peggy Lee stage, then I became Annie Ross, then Judy Collins.

I always think it's interesting to dig a little bit deeper every time you go to someplace that seems like a revelation or a strong connection to an emotional truth.

We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.

But when we listened to the radio, it was Bill Haley and the Comets or the Everly Brothers.

I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.

As a singer I tried on all these hats, these voices, these clothes, and eventually out came me.

It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black.

There was a French singer, Francoise Hardy - I used to look at her pictures and try to dress like her.

You're lucky you had that when you were 20. I sure didn't. I was overweight, and I had acne.

I think that most people really know if it's a really great album.

We are in this period now where we all are trying to be in shape physically and deny ourselves any pleasure.

So I suppose this slightly mature fashion sense happened because of what I had.

No, because I was always nervous about being onstage.

I'm still more comfortable with standards than with my own songs.

No, because I've never really changed my style that much.

I just want to show off my scar proudly and not be afraid of it.

I've gone through the village of my songwriting and my artistry, and I've gone through lots of different phases, including one where it has been very quiet and abandoned me for a few years.

I try to get to those peculiar and particular things that you never think of to say.

Being in this business for as long as I've been in it, it's sort of like living in a town or a city before the war and then after the war and then during the reconstruction and then during the time that it sprawls out to the malls.

I took it to heart that in order to be a good person, you never said anything mean about anybody.

Well, I tried to get a record deal in 1966 or '67, and everyone thought I was too eclectic.

You know when you take the paint off an old canvas and you discover that something's been painted underneath it? That's what I feel like - that part of the old is coming through the new.

Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music.

I always sang standards because the songs I wrote for myself weren't as easy to sing.

A really strong woman accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars.

Do you know how many concerts I've done in my whole life, in more than 35 years of performing? Sixty-four.

I had this terrible stammer, so I couldn't really speak properly until I was 16 or 17.

I think that I've got some pretty bad reviews on albums or songs that later proved themselves.

We need role models who are going to break the mold.

Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.

My look was even more solidified when I started singing in Greenwich Village with my sister Lucy. We wore matching dresses as the Simon Sisters.

I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack.

Anticipation is making me late, it's keeping me waiting.

The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind.

Ive always thought of myself as being a warrior. When you actually have a battle its better than when you dont know who to fight.

You know people want to honor me and on the one hand I just dont want to be a poster child but on the other I want to do something classy and great something where the residuals will go to the cause.

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee.

I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn't understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.

When I was a kid, I loved watching kung fu movies - in San Francisco, we had 'Kung Fu Theater' on TV on Saturdays, and they'd air old Shaw Brothers movies with English dubbing, things like that.

Is it not hard that even those who are with us should be against us - that a man's enemies, in some degree, should be those of the same household of faith? Yet so it is.

I decided at 40 I was wasting entire chunks of my brain and didn't want to blow my one chance on Earth. I'm glad I made that decision. Writing is largely about time, while visual art is largely about space. Sometimes, as with film, you can hybridize, but I think it's basically the space part of my brain wanting equal footing with the time part.