Lennox: "I want people to understand me as a person with views, not just performing songs."

Lennox: "I think that you can only be true to yourself. Nobody can live up to other people's expectations. You will always let them down. There will always be something they won't like about you."

Lennox: "I think music is the most phenomenal platform for intellectual thought."

Lennox: "In a sense, the music business and I haven't always been the best of bedfellows. Artists often have to fight their corner. Your music goes through these filters of record labels and media, and you're hoping you'll find someone who'll help you get your work into the world."

Lennox: "The world is a heartbreaking place, without any question."

Lennox: "Please don't ask me for the actual answer to anything, because I don't have it. Because all I do is look at stuff and ask questions. What can I say? I just think the world's barking mad. Look, I'm not an expert. I'm just an ordinary person."

Lennox: "I don't want to be owned by a corporation and obliged to make a certain type of album. I want to be free."

Lennox: "I've never been a social person. When I grew up, the other girls would all be combing their hair and exchanging lipstick, and I just couldn't do that group thing."

Lennox: "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?"

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "As a creative person, you just put something out into the consciousness of the society you live in."

Lennox: "Fear paralyses you - fear of flying, fear of the future, fear of leaving a rubbish marriage, fear of public speaking, or whatever it is."

Lennox: "The future hasn't happened yet and the past is gone. So I think the only moment we have is right here and now, and I try to make the best of those moments, the moments that I'm in."

Lennox: "I've always tried to keep my integrity and keep my autonomy."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "I love to be individual, to step beyond gender."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "I have always been a very visual person and a keen observer."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "I will go out of my way to avoid the shopping crowds and the extreme consumerism - I hate all that."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "Whatever you do, you do out of a passion."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "I enjoy multi-tasking, so I want to do a lot of different things. I want to keep all the plates spinning."

Lennox: "You wouldn't find a Joni Mitchell on 'X Factor;' that's not the place. 'X Factor' is a specific thing for people that want to go through that process - it's a factory, you know, and it's owned and stitched-up by puppet masters."

Lennox: "Music is a great vehicle for communications, and I have a certain platform. I have an opportunity and I have to take it."

Lennox: "I'm appalled that the word 'feminism' has been denigrated to a place of almost ridicule and I very passionately believe the word needs to be revalued and reintroduced with power and understanding that this is a global picture. It isn't about us and them."

Lennox: "Humankind seems to have an enormous capacity for savagery, for brutality, for lack of empathy, for lack of compassion."

Lennox: "I mean, I'm 48 years old and I've been through a lot in my life - you know, loss, whether it be death, illness, separation. I mean, the failed expectations... We all have dreams."

Lennox: "I don't feel there are enough women artists out there who are saying anything of tremendous relevance."

Lennox: "I was never much of a one to win prizes... and certainly never placed too much value on their acquisition."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "I see myself as a traveller."

Lennox: "My issue with the state of women became incredibly stimulated when I was visiting developing countries and it became obvious that women bore the brunt of so many things in society."

Lennox: "You know, I would say that songwriting is something about the expression of the heart, the intellect and the soul."

Lennox: "I would like to see the gay population get on board with feminism. It's a beautiful organisation and they've done so much. It seems to me a no-brainer."

Lennox: "If people like your music, you can't guarantee they're going to love you."

Lennox: "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."

Lennox: "Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death."

Lennox: "I have different hats; I'm a mother, I'm a woman, I'm a human being, I'm an artist and hopefully I'm an advocate. All of those plates are things I spin all the time."

Lennox: "I don't have clear-cut positions. I get baffled by things. I have viewpoints. Sometimes they change."

Lennox: "When I look at the majority of my own songs they really came from my own sense of personal confusion or need to express some pain or beauty - they were coming from a universal and personal place."

Lennox: "Money is a good thing and it's obviously useful, but to work only for money or fame would never interest me."

Lennox: "Feminism is a word that I identify with. The term has become synonymous with vitriolic man-hating but it needs to come back to a place where both men and women can embrace it. It is particularly important for women in developing countries."

Lennox: "You become really ugly when you become very superficial and self-obsessed."