Rita Ora

When it comes down to the music, it’s just you and the microphone. It’s not you and the record execs.

You can tell an honest artist from one who’s just given all their songs.

I think I’ve always been fine on stage – though I get nervous beforehand. But once I’m on stage, all of that goes out of the window.

Clothes are fun. The designers have so much fun making them, you should have fun wearing them, too.

All I can do is take influences from where I was raised.

I don’t know what it feels like not to have a great family support system – I was lucky to have that.

So I’ve realized that this outfit is part of Richard Petty now. And the real Richard Petty is still hidden behind these glasses.

A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. Ive been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I’m always convinced I’m not doing it right.

My favourite part [of Pulp Fiction] is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. ‘Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: Bitch be cool.’ I love those lines.

You haven’t been around here long, have you.

I’ve had the boyhood thing of being Elvis. Now I want to be with my best friend, and my best friend’s my wife. Who could ask for anything more?

Macho does not prove mucho.

Attending an all-girls school has its advantages, there are no inhibitions. You can walk to school with your zit cream on and your hair in rollers and nobody cares.

I’m just a regular girl. Some days I’m super strong; some days I’m super insecure. I just speak my truth and if people like it, they like it, and if they bash it, they bash it.

I like to delude myself that I’m in the old-Hollywood mode. I just tailor my clothes well and try to keep my skin clear. While it would be great to work out an hour a day, there is something inherently sort of selfish about it. I can’t do it.

Democracy is like a tambourine – not everyone can be trusted with it.’

When I was 17, my producer Rodney Jerkins was working with Michael Jackson at the time. He knew how much I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, so he says, ‘Would you like to come and meet him?’ I’m like, ‘Are you serious? Of course I want to meet Michael Jackson! Where do I meet you? Where do we come?’

I don’t now what situation they came from and I don’t know what they were offered to go somewhere else. It’s the times now, There’s not a any loyalty for anyone or anything – a whole lot. Wherever the money’s at, that’s where they’re going, so I don’t blame them. They’ve got just a few years to get it done and if they don’t get it done then, then they aren’t going to get it done.

Even when I was at ‘SNL,’ I didn’t do impersonations. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could do them – I always thought they were the coolest thing on the show – but I didn’t have any experience.

If you’re a singer, you can never say this is where the voyage ends, the job is never done. Once you have got it, you cannot sit on it. I have to try and change the landscape, whatever it is. I have to find a new place to ply my trade, to get lost in another place, and locate myself again. I’m an older man now and so it’s even more important.

Come on now! How could you be me and want to be someone else?