I spent most of my time being thrown out of folk clubs for not being Nana Mouskouri.

I regret that I've never actually managed to be inspired enough to get into anything else, and I should've been, I really should have been, because the piano can be a wonderful instrument. But I'm afraid that my inspiration is just purely on the words... and it's gonna stay there.

As a revolutionary and leader of people at the barricades, I failed. But as a person who inwardly revolts all the time, I'm a raging success.

Remember, this was a world that was still ethnically separated. I was thirteen and ignorant of the social situation in America, but I felt these records were better than what my own culture was turning out.

I've never known anything but emotional turmoil... I go from day to day in a kind of frenzied state. I can't wait to do this, that and the other.

I've listened to a lot of music, and I reckon that my records are definitely better, more stimulating, and more carefully constructed than any others. I've studied the melodies and lyrical forms of many artists, but no-one else quite seems to sustain the burning intensity of my own work.

I'm inspired by the poets, so I'm always going to give in that direction, rather than in any other. It's the making of me... and also the downfall of me.

I'd just like to prove to myself that I'm all here and all together and can get the best out of myself. I'd also like to prove that to a couple of other people.

I've always had a 'take it or leave it' attitude to fame; I'm much more interested in what I'm doing, rather than in anything like that.