We weren't allowed to have secular music in the house growing up. I was home-schooled, and gospel was the only choice we had.

My dad liked a lot of Motown, but I didn't listen to it until my teenage years.

Now that I'm coming out with my own record people can see I'm a solo artist.

In New York especially, I always want to wear a nice overcoat to get through the winter: you can wear them so many times, and they make every outfit better.

To understand why dictators fall, it helps to recognise factors that produce a perfect anti-dictatorial storm. Barring missteps such as those that led to Gaddafi's undoing, a dictator's survival can be at risk because of newness in office, poor health, or old age combined with economic trouble.

I won't do things for money. I can't.

If you have your own money, you feel entitled to spending your own money how you'd like to, and that's a slippery slope.

Great Expectations' has been described as 'Dickens's harshest indictment of society.' Which it is. After all, it's about money. About not having enough money; about the fever of the getting of money; about having too much money; about the taint of money.