“I would say that jazz is my own language.”

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.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

I don’t think your ability to fight has anything to do with how big you are. It’s to do with how much anger is in you.

I read a lot when I’m travelling and always have a couple of books on the go.

I’m happiest with my family around me.

I told you I was trouble, you know that I’m no good.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

Relationship doesn’t remain, We resonate on different flames, I could cut you down again, If you were like all other men, If you were like all other men, I know that I could shut you down again

I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist, but I don’t like girls pretending to be stupid because it’s easier.

And then by the end of the third year they completely lose that ability, partly because we teach them the specialized language of medicine.

I think that phrase is the most horrible phrase in the English language – ‘I don’t know.’ It’s terribly embarrassing.

I feed on good soup, not beautiful language.

Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.

At a priesthood meeting… the strongest language in regard to Plural Marriage was used that I ever heard

Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown.

Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.

We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.