Alexander the Great

I’ve known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that’s as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I’ve known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began – out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don’t necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.

My father was very energetic; my mother was very energetic. He lived to a very old age, and so did my mother. I believe that I just have it from my father, from my parents. They had wonderful energy.

I have real good parents. They poor. They have regular, poor jobs and what not. They real good people and what not; I was just raised in a bad society.

My mother’s a psychologist, my stepfather’s a psychologist, my stepmother is a therapist and my dad’s a lawyer. So it was all prominent in my life. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know someone on some form of prescription medicine.

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.

Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

I was loved dearly by my father but I was never so precious that he didn’t think that I could be in there right at the table.

It’s incredible watching my son grow up and learn to read, discover the world and test boundaries. Being a mum is the greatest joy of my life, definitely.

My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously honest.

My most important title is “mom-in-chief”. My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the centre of my world.

Up until I was 12 my sisters used to dress me up as a girl and introduce me as ‘Claudia’! Twelve was a turning point as I moved to a mixed school and then I became cool and discovered hair gel.

My daughter hasn’t seen me with anybody in five years. I’m very, very selective when it comes to that because I want to make sure that it’s real. I don’t want her to see me with just anybody because she means everything to me.

Your siblings are the only people in the world who know what it’s like to have been brought up the way you were.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert’s understanding, but also approached art emotionally.