Annie Lennox
The person who inspired me the most was a friend of mine, Anita Roddick. I know that Anita wasn't known to be an ardent feminist, but she truly was.
Having children, they're not your property. They need to figure out their own views. I think my daughters have a pretty healthy self-awareness, but I can't speak on their behalf.
Nelson Mandela is awe inspiring - a person who really sacrificed for what he believed in. I feel truly humbled by him.
Anita Roddick was amazing. Her presence in a room was full of light, and everything she worked to achieve still resonates now.
Pop stars are so busy having a career that they don't really have a lot of time for activism.
There's a lot of women's organisations, but they're all working separately. If you get people together, as a collaborative voice, it's strong.
Why are we not valuing the word 'feminism' when there is so much work to be done in terms of empowerment and emancipation of women everywhere?
I used to be obsessed about how I presented myself. I didn't want other people dressing me because I didn't want to be treated like a clothes horse.
I'm not a Christian, but I think the Christian message is a good one.
I have a reputation for being cold and aloof, but I'm so not that woman. I'm passionate. I love my girls, being with my girlfriends, getting involved with issues that affect other women and children who are suffering.
I have a calling in my soul, if you like, to try to make my life in some way worthwhile. What is the value of my existence?
If someone says something unpleasant, I can't say it doesn't smart a bit. It always does. Someone can take a really nasty swipe if they want because it kind of feels powerful for a person to write in a paper and get that thing out there.
I don't feel there are enough women artists out there who are saying anything of tremendous relevance.
Every artist has to make their own statements and they have to live with them.
I sang a lot as a little girl and entered competitions. I loved singing in choirs, but it was as I got older that I really found my voice.
If I hadn't been a singer, I might have been a photographer or an artist. But it's singing I love. I sing all the time, and I feel really good that I've expressed myself.
I haven't lived my life through my daughters. Some parents devote everything to their children, which must be so hard, and it's very beautiful. But I'm a working parent, so I've always kept my own life.
I'm not a saint. I'm not an angel. I'm a human being.
Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment, although most of us don't even have the faintest idea about their lives, their trials, their hardships or challenges.
There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won't.
I would say that although my music may be or may have been part of the cultural background fabric of the gay community, I consider myself an outsider who belongs everywhere and nowhere... Being a human being is what truly counts. That's where you'll find me.
When you're that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you.
Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody... as a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.
When you go to Africa, and you see children, they're usually barefoot, dirty and in rags, and they'd love to go to school.
You just decide what your values are in life and what you are going to do, and then you feel like you count, and that makes life worth living. It makes my life meaningful.
I think music is the most phenomenal platform for intellectual thought.
Humankind seems to have an enormous capacity for savagery, for brutality, for lack of empathy, for lack of compassion.
You know, I would say that songwriting is something about the expression of the heart, the intellect and the soul.
We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.
I'm just an ordinary person.
The inner world is very potent for me - I don't ascribe to any God or Jesus or Buddha - I just have a sense of it and revere it along with the natural world and human consciousness.
It's hard to tell how far women's individuality has come in the past twenty years.
It's not fair to compare one artist to another because they all come with their own sort of elements to the picnic, you know.
I watch 'Mad Men,' I knit scarves, I cook and am very, very normal. Honestly.
Most women are dissatisfied with their appearance - it's the stuff that fuels the beauty and fashion industries.
I was perceiving myself as good as a man or equal to a man and as powerful and I wanted to look ambiguous because I thought that was a very interesting statement to make through the media. And it certainly did cause quite a few ripples and interest and shock waves.
A lot of music you might listen to is pretty vapid, it doesn't always deal with our deeper issues. These are the things I'm interested in now, particularly at my age.
It's a very telling thing when you have children. You have to be there for them, you've got to set an example, when you're not sure what your example is, and anyway the world is changing so fast you don't know what is appropriate anymore.
Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion - very powerful emotions. That's what draws millions of people towards it. And, um, I found myself always going for these darker places and - people identify with that.
Over the years, I was never really driven to become a solo artist, but I was curious to find out who I was as an individual creative person. It's taken some time, but now I feel I've truly paid my dues. I guess I'm at a point now where I'm more comfortable in my own skin.
Whatever you do, you do out of a passion.
Those in the developing world have so few rights - we take a lot for granted in the developed world.
I think Scotland could take a stand in a wonderful way, ecologically and morally and ethically.
I have always felt a little homeless. It's a strange thing.
Although I have lived in London, I have never really considered London my home because it was always going to be a stopping-off point for me, and it has been too.
I see myself as a traveller.
I was never much of a one to win prizes... and certainly never placed too much value on their acquisition.
The world is a heartbreaking place, without any question.
I don't have clear-cut positions. I get baffled by things. I have viewpoints. Sometimes they change.