“Since I was 16, I’ve felt a black cloud hangs over me. Since then, I have taken pills for depression.”

When I was a little kid it was my dream to go to drama school, but it was never something I thought would happen to me. I was a Jewish girl from North London and things like that don’t happen to Jewish girls from North London called Amy Winehouse.

At Age 11, I used to listen to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection every day

I would say that jazz is my own language.

I’ve always had my own style, I’ve always been different. I don’t like to wear anything that anyone else is wearing because it’s very important for me to make a statement.

I do see myself settling down, getting married and having kids. But when I think about a family life in the future there’s rarely a man involved which is kind of weird.

I don’t think I’m such an amazing person who needs to be written about.

I was hit by a car once on my bike, but I still rode home.

When I’m nervous, I stutter, and I had to keep stopping and starting.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

I wouldn’t be with a man who was scared of me, but I don’t think men are scared of me – look at me, I’m tiny. I don’t think I’m capable of putting anyone off. I’m a nice girl.

I’ve never been an idiot – I was a smart girl but I’d do stupid things like go around Asda and nick stuff because my friends told me to. I was a good girl as a teenager.

I can’t be arsed with game players. I’m more ‘I like you, do you like me? Let’s go and do something about it.’ I’m a very straightforward person like that.

If I heard someone else singing like me, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

I only write about stuff that’s happened to me.. stuff I can’t get past personally. Luckily, I’m quite self-destructive.

Here in England, everyone’s a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist.

I’m not a natural born performer.

No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion.

There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity.

My faith has always taught me that all people deserve to be treated equally.

The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.

Never become bitter, and in the process, be happy and just go for it.

The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.

I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine.

Black holes are where God divided by zero.