If you've ever seen album covers for Arab female pop stars, it looks like the designer was paid five dollars to make them, and the extreme femaleness is astounding.

The first question [American college kids] asked me was, 'What state is Kuwait in?' They thought Kuwait was in America.

I'm fascinated by evil queens. They're very alluring and repellent at the same time, and I'm into that dichotomy.

The vast majority of women musicians function under singular names like 'Cher' 'Madonna'. They have to get married almost immediately to preserve their honour.

There are very few pop people I'm interested in working with.

I feel like there is an emphasis against teaching geography in American schools. Americans don't say, "I'm going to Germany." They say, "I'm going to Europe."

I was one of five out of 100 people who passed the test, which just proved to me how little Americans are taught geography.

I've never been to China. I only know what the West is telling me about China.

I had a story-telling mother; she's written novels and short stories. So I feel like maybe I'm staying alive by telling tales.

My music doesn't exist in a vacuum; there's a script and there's an actor and it's about to come together.

I still think you people need to be curious [in order to absorb the culture]. You need to search Uzbekistani pop music.

People forget to understand your goodness, teach them something new.

In war, love is a luxury. It comes at a high price... This brand of marriage, I guess, takes steady nerves.

As a rule, he or she who has the most information will have the greatest success in life.

Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.

There is no way to measure it ... because there's no one to measure it.

The rule with marriage is the less you talk about it the better, as far as I can tell.

Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow.

What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?

At the beginning of a love affair, not even the neurotic is neurotic.

Terror of the future can be put out to pasture with psychedelic shamanism.