"Although becoming a singer was my plan A after first hearing Whitney Houston when I was 17, I started off with plan B by going to the teacher-training college that my dad went to. It was a slow coming of age."

"I know for works for me - those wonderful sad love songs."

"I've been advised not to have any more children for medical reasons, so that's it - the shop has closed, even though I would have loved a daughter."

"I can't record in the morning because I sound like Barry White."

"I'm an ambitious person. I never consider myself in competition with anyone, and I'm not saying that from an arrogant standpoint, it's just that my journey started so, so long ago, and I'm still on it and I won't stand still."

"When ambition meets humility, we find that shadows are only cast by the presence of light."

"It is a subtle truth that the spark of ambition becomes a blaze of accomplishment only through disciplined persistence."

"When two people first meet, they can only have a very ordinary kind of friendship. But when you begin to understand each other, when you get close to them, you discover that you're suddenly eager to know him or her even better."