“I’d say that, first and foremost, I’m a performer; I started performing when I was four years old, and being on stage from a young age set me up.”

I just really want to make albums – and however I can, I will.

Curvy is something to be proud of.

It’s tragic that you can define a whole movement in music by gender alone. People are like, ‘Oh, look, another quirky girl.’

I really hate bureaucracy and the idea that I’m not a free person.

I think soul is soul. I don’t see new soul as any different to old soul.

I agree with cosmetic surgery for medical reasons – my mother had breast cancer and I think it’s very sad when somebody has no choice in what happens to their body.

I dread the idea of a paparazzi snapping me while I’m out running.

It’s celebrated in British culture to be eccentric.

Sometimes people fear the truth. They’d rather not speak to you than know what you really think.

I love going to the cinema. Whenever I get time off, that’s where I go.

There’s nothing wrong with a thick eyebrow; Frida Kahlo had them.

I’m under no illusion that there are things about me that I’d like to change. I just accept who I am, and I’m proud of it.

All creative people have to have vulnerability because those nuances are what move people. So I’m deeply insecure – but I’m good at hiding it.

I try to stick to a certain diet all the time, and then when I feel like a reward, I have it. I try to stick to no dairy, no sugar, no wheat.

I’m not a pop act, churning stuff out really quickly. I find the music that arises from that style of working is distracted, not particularly profound.

I feel quite fearless protecting the people I love.

What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.

The only transformer and alchemist that turns everything into gold is love. The only magic against death, aging, ordinary life, is love.

Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.

People want to find a meaning in everything and everyone. That’s the disease of our age.

Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

Youth has no age.

Thirty is a very good age for an actor: you can play both young and old men.