"I always want to give my best and do the best I can. I know when I have sung my best and when I haven't. There can be stresses and hassles with time travel and press attention. I just have to adapt and find a way of dealing with it."

"Oh, stuff the critics. I don't care. Too many people are snooty about classical. Look, I wasn't brought up in a home where we listened to classical music. It was a singing teacher that thought it would be best for my voice. Then I moved into crossover. And if that makes the music accessible to more people, then great."

"I think maybe because of the kind of music I sing, people want to believe you're a diva. They can't believe after eight years, and eight albums, you're still relatively sane. I feel like they almost want me to throw something at somebody."

"I'm still a Welsh girl at heart so I'm staying in the U.K. for the Olympics, it's such an exciting time for Britain so it's amazing to be a part of it."

"Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince."

"I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very, very involved and interested in art, and particularly in animated movies."

"If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry."

"When you actually like each other, it translates to the music."