When I first came out, like a lot of the artists at that time, I had a very polished, very overproduced sound.

Well, honey, I had the million dollar houses, I had the car, I had the horse, I had the barn; I had everything. Was I set free? I didn't even know what that meant.

My tastes and inspirational artists were always rather eclectic and diverse.

I have to be very careful about diet and exercise.

And I'm also looking for a comeback record and it has to touch a lot of people.

I've had enough boyfriends and enough issues. I'd seen enough train wrecks.

I came out the box and for seven years I had a huge career. And then it's done, it's dumped. But I ain't gone, and I refuse to be gone.

I smoked some pot as a kid, but I just never did drugs.

By the second tour I had rice cakes and hummus with me, and I was jumping rope in my room.

All you needed back then was a blow dryer and a dream.

But once you strip that down, you realize it's all about a voice, like a Norah Jones - that's inspiring to me.

Did people think I sounded black? Totally, but that was a marketing tool as well, but also this is how I grew up and these are my influences.

My current mantra is that sometimes we need teachers in our lives. I never had that in my life, parents and stuff like that; I tried to stay on the outside of them or anybody that had that kind of influence.

I'm not looking to go out there and make a rhythmic Timbaland track.

I started working out with a trainer and I immediately saw results.

I just try to get out of my own way because if anyone is their own worst enemy, it's usually you.

This is one hell of a business I picked to be in.

Plus, I am paranoid by nature. I need to be in control.

My first tour I was on the road for 18 months. You're just out there promoting.

When I first came out, like a lot of the artists at that time, I had a very polished, very overproduced sound.

So when I'm working out I do things extreme.

If anything changes shape or takes off without me, I'll come after you and kill you. I'm too type A.

If we were truly in the studio making a record, it would have been more time consuming, and certainly I would have been more involved in the writing process.

That's really my goal now. I'm trying to be a positive role model to my kids and to just enjoy this ride, because it's hard. It's hard to enjoy it when you're in it.

Ive had enough boyfriends and enough issues. Id seen enough train wrecks.

SO WHEN I'M WORKING OUT I DO THINGS EXTREME.

But I found a lot of artists at the Cedar Bar were difficult for me to talk to.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.

I got to sit down with people who I admired, and have conversations with some of the greatest thinkers and artists and performers. It's a huge privilege for me to be a journalist.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

The truth is, we haven't really figured out yet how artists are going to thrive in modern mass societies. We're all experiments.

Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.

The number of contemporary artists who appeal to me is infinitesimal.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists.

Because when the film was first mooted, the Beatles didn't like the idea at all. In fact they wouldn't have any part in it. And when Brian had committed them, it was part of a deal he did with United Artists, I think.

Artists are like everybody else.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

My proudest achievement has been the success of the shows and artists I have been involved with, because they were made in Britain.

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

I didn't want to save art - I respected the older artists too much to think art needed saving. But I knew it was finished, even though, at that time, I didn't know what I would do.

Music is more emotional than prose, more revolutionary than poetry. I'm not saying I've got the answers, just a of questions that I don't hear other artists asking.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

I've never understood why artists, who so often condescend to the cliches of their own culture, are so eager to embrace the cliches of cultures they know nothing about.

I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee. Not now, but when I'm 50, when music dies down a little bit. I know lots of artists and actors have those delusions of grandeur, but ever since I was a kid, it's been of interest to me.

Let's look at people as artists and try to support them; just because Picasso painted a couple of bad paintings, that's no reason to say he's a lousy painter.

Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.