Just the whole concept of burlesque, I've always been fascinated with it. I've always collected so many books about burlesque.

I'm an ocean, because I'm really deep. If you search deep enough you can find rare exotic treasures.

So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?

The female body is something that's so beautiful. I wish women would be proud of their bodies and not diss other women for being proud of theirs.

You can never be too perfect, too thin, too curvy. I'm very confident and happy with my body.

I am Ecuadorian but people felt so safe passing me off as a skinny, blue-eyed white girl.

I don't think there is such a thing as being too raunchy when it comes to the art form of burlesque.

There was no way in hell I was going to jeopardize my baby for my show.

Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain, so much beauty of raw emotion and passion.

I love theatrics and have a huge imagination: Why would I want to sit onstage and sing a bunch of ballads back-to-back?

I remember watching the Grammys and looking at the performances and crying to my mom, saying how much I wanted to be there.

Loved. You can't use it in the past tense. Death does not stop that love at all.

There will be strange ebbs and flows in the tide of race feelings.

Be what you wish your children to be. Parents have perpetuated by precept and example their own stamp of character to their posterity.

My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.

I don't get tired, because every time a woman doesn't die or doesn't get beaten or doesn't get raped or doesn't get honor-killed or doesn't get acid-burned, it's a huge victory.

Most of us are so busy trying to manage, maintain, or even just survive our life situation, that we don't make time to focus on what's most important - our LIFE.

If I'm trading bars with somebody, it certainly is not because I have a release coming. Joe Budden prides himself on the music and not the sales aspect.

My father was very much a child of the counterculture movement and was drawn to the idea of alleviating poverty in the developing world, helping farmers diversify their crops and stuff like that.

It's natural to be afraid of replacing everything you already gained by a dream.

I can't stop terrorism; I can't cure cancer. But I can put some stories out there in their own quiet way that talk about tolerance.