I always think it's interesting to dig a little bit deeper every time you go to someplace that seems like a revelation or a strong connection to an emotional truth.
You're so vain. I bet you think this song is about you.
I had this terrible stammer, so I couldn't really speak properly until I was 16 or 17.
We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.
My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
You know, people want to honor me, and on the one hand I just don't want to be a poster child; but on the other, I want to do something classy and great - something where the residuals will go to the cause.
The models for me were more the folk-rock singers of the '60s and '70s.
Worrying too much about other people's ears and not my own, I lost my way.
We are in this period now where we all are trying to be in shape physically and deny ourselves any pleasure.
You know, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 I realized I had spent too long arranging my attitude.
We change our opinions of ourselves so often. What the outside world thinks is only a small part of our image.
Then I went through a big Peggy Lee stage, then I became Annie Ross, then Judy Collins.
I'm still more comfortable with standards than with my own songs.
I've always thought of myself as being a warrior. When you actually have a battle, it's better than when you don't know who to fight.
I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.
Being in this business for as long as I've been in it, it's sort of like living in a town or a city before the war and then after the war and then during the reconstruction and then during the time that it sprawls out to the malls.
I think that I've got some pretty bad reviews on albums or songs that later proved themselves.
It's like The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat, about the discovery of penicillin. Out of these strange accidents come huge discoveries. A certain purple bleeds into red and all of a sudden you have something unexpected.
So I suppose this slightly mature fashion sense happened because of what I had.
I always sang standards because the songs I wrote for myself weren't as easy to sing.
My look was even more solidified when I started singing in Greenwich Village with my sister Lucy. We wore matching dresses as the Simon Sisters.
I grew up not understanding what was true and what was not true. It gave me a sense of unreality. I was told that this man [mom's lover] was not my mother's lover - when he was. I was told he was there as a male babysitter for my brother so that he would learn sports and other manly things.
The advancements that women have made are very threatening to men in the job place. There haven't been that many women in politics. If you look at the conventions, it's kind of pathetic how many men are the heads of companies. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the reality should be.
Do you know how many concerts I've done in my whole life, in more than 35 years of performing? Sixty-four.
