Honestly, I think, as an artist, it's everything that's in your life that informs what you do. So, obviously, growing up in Cleveland has played a big role in how I see the world.

Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.

Maybe it's naive to say, but it almost seems like, in the past, people tried to sell you something you would actually need, like a hammer or a broom or a toothbrush. But now there's this notion that they can sell you anything. And all they have to do is convince you that you need it.

Men are able to sustain a career into their 50s and 60s and still present themselves as sex symbols. With women, on the other hand, people say, 'Why doesn't she retire?'

The cult of the individual is killing us. I think Twitter signals the death of western civilisation, but people have been saying that since Demosthenes.

If you do anything for too long, it starts to lack edge, to become too easy. Easy is the kiss of death.

I like grit. I like love and death. I'm tired of irony.

I hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.