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If You Do Nothing, If A Mother Doesn't Come For Care, If She Breastfeeds Her Baby, The Chances Of The Baby Getting Hiv Are About 40%. So It's About The Difference Between 40% And Zero. This Is Almost Totally Preventable. But It Requires Mothers Coming For Care And Getting The Medicines They Need, And Getting The Education And Support They Need.

-Annie Lennox

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If You Do Nothing,

Annie Lennox

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If You Do Nothing, If A Mother Doesn't Come For Care, If She Breastfeeds Her Baby, The Chances Of The Baby Getting Hiv Are About 40%. So It's About The Difference Between 40% And Zero. This Is Almost Totally Preventable. But It Requires Mothers Coming For Care And Getting The Medicines They Need, And Getting The Education And Support They Need.

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I'm From A Working-class Background, And I've Experienced That Worry Of Not Having A Job Next Week Because The Unions Are Going On Strike.

There Are Two Kinds Of Artists Left: Those Who Endorse Pepsi And Those Who Simply Won't.

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.

I Didn't Want To Be A Barbie Doll. I Didn't Want To Be A Passive Entertainer. It Wasn't How I Wanted To Present Myself.

I Enjoy Multi-tasking, So I Want To Do A Lot Of Different Things. I Want To Keep All The Plates Spinning.

One Realizes After A Long Time That, Actually, We Are Contradictory, All Of Us.

I Think The Whole Experience Of Being A Human Being On The Planet Is Such A Mystery, To Be Honest. Trying To Figure Out One's Purpose And [asking] "what Is It All About?"

I Think Life On The Road Really Suits Very Egotistical Men. It's Set Up For Kings.

I Watch 'mad Men,' I Knit Scarves, I Cook And Am Very, Very Normal. Honestly.

Making A Christmas Album Is Looked Upon By Some People As The Thing You Do When You Are Heading Towards Retirement.

As A Creative Person, You Just Put Something Out Into The Consciousness Of The Society You Live In.

A Lot Of Music You Might Listen To Is Pretty Vapid, It Doesn't Always Deal With Our Deeper Issues. These Are The Things I'm Interested In Now, Particularly At My Age.

I Grew Up In A Middle Class Household With Parents, Went To Good Schools, And Never Feared For Anything, Never Wanted For Anything That Was Really Important. For All Of Us Living In This World, All Of Us Who Have The Resources, For Us To Not Dedicate Ourselves To Giving Something Back, Is To Leave The World A Lesser Place.

I Can't Understand Why The Front Pages Of Newspapers Can Cover Bird Flu And Swine Flu And Everybody Is Up In Arms About That And We Still Haven't Really Woken Up To The Fact That So Many Women In Sub-saharan Africa - 60 Percent Of People In - Infected With Hiv Are Women.

I'm A Female But I Have A Masculine Side And I'm Not Going To Negate That Part Of Myself.

Success Breeds The Excitement To Continue Going.

One Wouldn't Want To Have The Same Dilemmas At 50 As One Had At 15. And Indeed I Don't. I Have A Very Different Take On Life.

I Understand What It Is For A Woman To Want To Protect Their Children And Give Them The Best They Can.

I Was Brought Up In A Tenement House In A Working District. We Didn't Even Have A Bathroom! We Had A Gaslight In The Hallway And A Black-and-white Tv.

Black And White

More Than Anything, I Think Everything About Appearance Is Illusory. People See You, And They Think They Understand What You're Projecting, But Actually, They Have Their Own Interpretation Of It, Or They Put A Label On You.

I Wasn't Trying To Be A Role Model For Anybody. I Don't Think That You Can.

You're Never Quite Sure Where The Song Is Going, Because You Might Not Find The Word To Rhyme With The End Of The Line. You Have To Find Associative Meaning To Get You There. So It's Rather Like Doing A Crossword Puzzle Backwards. A Kind Of Strange, Three-dimensional, Abstract Crossword Puzzle.

There Is A Big Difference Between What I Do Onstage And What I Do In My Private Life. I Don't Put My Living Room On Magazine Pages.

Fundamentally, We Are All In The Same Place: We're Born, We Live, And We're Going To Die. In Between, We'll Have Joy And We'll Have Sadness.

You Have To Face Things, Have Faith In What You Do And Go For It. Think, 'what's The Worst That Could Happen?'

I Have Always Felt A Little Homeless. It's A Strange Thing.

I Have A Lot To Be Grateful For.

When You Get To Be Nearly 60, You Do Take Stock. You Don't Know What's Around The Corner.

Around The Corner

I Think It Takes A Lot To Put Oneself In A Place Where, You Know, That Thing About "feel The Fear And Do It Anyway." You Wonder What The Driving Force Is That Makes You Want To Do That And Not Just Stay In A Safer Place.

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.

Fame For Fame's Sake Is Toxic - Some People Want That, With No Boundaries. It's Unhealthy.

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.

When You're That Successful, Things Have A Momentum, And At A Certain Point You Can't Really Tell Whether You Have Created The Momentum Or It's Creating You.

I Wouldn't Say That I've Mellowed. I'm Less Mellow, Perhaps.

I Think Scotland Could Take A Stand In A Wonderful Way, Ecologically And Morally And Ethically.

You Become Really Ugly When You Become Very Superficial And Self-obsessed.

I Will Go Out Of My Way To Avoid The Shopping Crowds And The Extreme Consumerism - I Hate All That.

If I Hadn't Been A Singer, I Might Have Been A Photographer Or An Artist. But It's Singing I Love. I Sing All The Time, And I Feel Really Good That I've Expressed Myself.

Fear Paralyses You - Fear Of Flying, Fear Of The Future, Fear Of Leaving A Rubbish Marriage, Fear Of Public Speaking, Or Whatever It Is.

I Think Music Is The Most Phenomenal Platform For Intellectual Thought.

I Played With The Image, Because I Think Image Is Temporary. It's A Projection. It's Illusory.

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.

To Try To Help People Have Babies In A Healthy Way And To Celebrate The Process Of Delivering A Child Which Will Be Healthy Is, I Think, Almost The Best Part Of Healthcare.

Motherhood Was The Great Equaliser For Me; I Started To Identify With Everybody.

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.

Although I Have Lived In London, I Have Never Really Considered London My Home Because It Was Always Going To Be A Stopping-off Point For Me, And It Has Been Too.

I Don't Have Clear-cut Positions. I Get Baffled By Things. I Have Viewpoints. Sometimes They Change.

I'm Not Particularly Attention-seeking.

Attention Seeking

This Is The Book I Never Read ~ These Are The Words I Never Said ~ This Is The Path I'll Never Tread ~ These Are The Dreams I'll Dream Instead

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I Like Where I Live Here, In London.

The Music Industry Has Always Been A Beast, Which Would Eat You Up And Spit You Out.

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Beginning Middle And End

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Charity Is A Fine Thing If It's Meeting A Gap Where Needs Must Be Met And There Are No Other Resources. But In The Long Term We Need To Support People Into Helping Themselves.

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I Love To Make Music And Stay Grounded.

Dying Is Easy, It's Living That Scares Me To Death.

I'm An Only Child, You Know, Originally. I'm Not A Child Anymore, But I Certainly Tend To Spend A Lot Of Time On My Own.

To Be Labeled As A Strong Woman When You Feel Vulnerable Is A Strange Place To Be, Because Then You're, Like, "oh, I Have To Be Strong Now. But I Don't Feel Strong. I Feel Alienated. I Feel Isolated. I Feel That Things Are Very Surreal, And They're Not Authentic, And This Is All Just Very Overwhelming."

I'm Not A Christian, But I Think The Christian Message Is A Good One.

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There's Always Darkness Around, And If You Focus On The Darkness, You Don't Know Where To Go. But If You Direct Yourself At The Light - There It Is! It's Right There.

I Think That The Thing Is, All Those Years Of Creating Music Or Trying To Express Something Of A Dark Shadow, An Existential Angst That I Have Felt Most Of My Life And Still Feel Today, To Not Be Overwhelmed By It. Music, In A Way, Is A Great Vehicle, A Means By Which One Can Express All These Somewhat Contradictory Feelings.

There Are So Many Things That We Could Do To Change The World In So Many Aspects. There Are People Working In Nonprofit Organizations, Tackling The Issues That We So Desperately Need To Face, While Governments Fail So Appallingly.

I've Never Experienced Chronic Poverty, But I Know What It's Like To Live On £3 A Week.

The Poetic Side Of Me Is Scottish.

It's Hard To Tell How Far Women's Individuality Has Come In The Past Twenty Years.

I've Thought About What Is An Alternative Word To Feminism. There Isn't One. It's A Perfectly Good Word. And It Can't Be Changed.

I Was Never Much Of A One To Win Prizes... And Certainly Never Placed Too Much Value On Their Acquisition.

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I Want To Be True To Who I Am.

You Have To Be Quite Grounded, And I Don't Know What That Is. Sometimes, That Means Being Vulnerable.

The Word Feminism Needs To Be Taken Back. It Needs To Be Reclaimed In A Way That Is Inclusive Of Men.

Imagine Living In Abject Poverty And Not Knowing Anything Other Than That For Generations. Or Alternatively, Imagine Being Born Into A Really Wealthy Family, But There Was No Real Love. Everyone's Living These Extraordinary, Interesting Lives Whether They Know It Or Not.

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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.

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I Want People To Understand Me As A Person With Views, Not Just Performing Songs.

I Didn't Want To Be Perceived As A Girly Girl On Stage.

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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.

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I Live In A World Of Possibility And Opportunity. You Look For The Light. There's Darkness Everywhere But You Look For That Spot Of Light And You Work Your Way Towards It, And You Do What It Takes To Get There.

Our Ancestors Are Totally Essential To Our Every Waking Moment, Although Most Of Us Don't Even Have The Faintest Idea About Their Lives, Their Trials, Their Hardships Or Challenges.

When I Was Younger I Wish I'd Known That What Often Seemed To Be The 'end Of The World' Often Turned Out To Be A Positive And Transformative Experience!

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.

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When Things Are Starting To Work, You Get Up At Five In The Morning Thinking, What Are We Going To Do Today? You Stay Up Until One In The Morning Getting It Done, And Then You Start The Next Day With The Same Energy, Because It's Working!

Men Need To Understand, And Women Too, What Feminism Is Really About.

The Person Who Inspired Me The Most Was A Friend Of Mine, Anita Roddick. I Know That Anita Wasn't Known To Be An Ardent Feminist, But She Truly Was.

Just Having Medicine Isn't Equivalent To Medical Care. You Need The Health Systems, You Need To Create The Social Framework So That People Feel Safe.

I Chose A Career In Obstetrics And Gynecology Because There's Something About Honoring Women, Honoring The Birth Process. We All Come From Women, And There's Something Extraordinary About The Mothers Who Raised Us.

To Be Human Is To Have A Whole Spectrum Of These Experiences That Arise Within Us.

I Only Want To Make Music Because I Have A Passion For It.

Desire, Despair, Desire. So Many Monsters.

There's Good Stuff And Bad Stuff, But You Continue On. I'm Not Prescriptive - I Cannot Tell Anyone Else What To Do With Their Lives, And I'm A Deeply Flawed Individual - But This Is It. We're All Just Living It And... Bless Us All.

Music Is A Great Vehicle For Communications, And I Have A Certain Platform. I Have An Opportunity And I Have To Take It.

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.

Developing Countries

I Wouldn't Have Known When I Was A Teenager That When I Was Coming Up To Being A Sixty-year-old Woman That I'd Be Making Music, I'd Be Recording Music, Talking About Music, And Incorporating My Views On The World Into The Music-making. So It's A Very Rarefied Place To Be, And I'm Very Grateful For That.

In Memory, You Can Access Something From The Past, Anything That You've Experienced That You Remember - It's There. Now, You Might Have A Memento Of It In A Photograph Or In A Film Or A Building Or Some Clothes That You Wore. There Might Be Something That Connects You To This Memory. But All Of Us Are Just All Caught In This Time, Whatever That Is.

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.

I Want To Branch Out. I Want To Write. I Write Poetry. I Want To See My Children Grow Up Well.

I'm Not A Saint. I'm Not An Angel. I'm A Human Being.

Hiv/aids Has No Boundaries.

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.

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The Dynamic Between Two Individuals Starts Off With Everything Warm And Nice And Fabulous And Good. Working And Living Together Can Serve You Quite Well, But When It Starts To Go Wrong - Oh, Boy!

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.

Those In The Developing World Have So Few Rights - We Take A Lot For Granted In The Developed World.

I Find Beauty In A Very Independent State. It Lives Quietly. It's There To Be Discovered.

Bulnerable Without Strength Is Vulnerable, And Being Vulnerable Means You Can Be Victimized.

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I'd Rather Support The Issues I Truly Believe In Than Give My Vote To Parties That Court Votes At The Time Of The Election. I Like To Think That My Vote Strengthens The Green Foundation Stone.

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Most Women Are Dissatisfied With Their Appearance - It's The Stuff That Fuels The Beauty And Fashion Industries.

The Music Scene In The '70s Was Like The United Kingdom In The '70s - We Had A Lot Of Unemployment, We Had Inflation, We Had A Lot Of Strikes Going On, On A National Scale, And A Lot Of Discontent. That Was Reflected In The Music.

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I Was Born In 1954. My Parents Were Brought Up In The War Years, And Life Was Hard.

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Green Is A Label For A Certain Attitude To Life, A Certain Kind Of Respect That One Might Have For The Very Source Of Things That We Take For Granted.

I Don't Feel There Are Enough Women Artists Out There Who Are Saying Anything Of Tremendous Relevance.

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At Times, I've Been So Absolutely Terrified Of What I Was About To Do, Whether It Was Public Speaking Or Performance. Whatever It Was, Sometimes It Had Me Really, Really Shaking In My Shoes, And I Decided That I Was Going To Do It No Matter What. And, Of Course, The Critic Is There, And Afterwards, There's This, "was It Good Enough? Was It Really All I Wanted To Say?"

I Get Very Frustrated When I Hear Women Saying, "oh, Feminism Is Passé," Because I Think Feminism Means Empowerment. Men Can Be Feminists, Too! Many Men Are Feminists. We Need Feminism. It's Not Against Men; It's About The Empowerment Of Women. It's The Respect Of Women - Giving Women Equal Rights, The Same Opportunities.

Ask Yourself: Have You Been Kind Today? Make Kindness Your Daily Modus Operandi And Change Your World.

I Don't Have Any Interest To Go To Israel. I Don't Think I'd Ever Have A Cause To Go.

I've Had My Share Of Dark Days Of The Soul. I Try Not To Focus On It Too Much So It Doesn't Get To Me.

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Meaning Of Life

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Medicine Comes With Hope: The Hope Of Having A Healthy Child, The Hope Of Being Able To Raise Your Family.

The Momentum Of Time Is Always Going Forward. You Cannot Repeat What Has Been Done Before. You Can't Go Back.

I Think My Daughters Have A Pretty Healthy Self-awareness But I Can't Speak On Their Behalf.

If Someone Says Something Unpleasant, I Can't Say It Doesn't Smart A Bit. It Always Does. Someone Can Take A Really Nasty Swipe If They Want Because It Kind Of Feels Powerful For A Person To Write In A Paper And Get That Thing Out There.

Twerking Is Not Feminism. Thats What I’m Referring To. It’s Not — It’s Not Liberating, It’s Not Empowering. It’s A Sexual Thing That You’re Doing On A Stage; It Doesn’t Empower You. That’s My Feeling About It.

It's Not Fair To Compare One Artist To Another Because They All Come With Their Own Sort Of Elements To The Picnic, You Know.

I Identify With Other Women Because Of My Gender, And I Identify With Other Women If They Are Mothers Because I'm A Mother, Too. It's Very Simple. It's Nothing Complicated, It's Not Rocket Science. It's About Empathy. It's About Understanding That What Happens With One Person Is Potentially What Happens To You, And Seeing Yourself In Someone Else's Shoes. Fundamentally, We Are All In The Same Place: We're Born, We Live, And We're Going To Die. In Between, We'll Have Joy And We'll Have Sadness.

I Sang A Lot As A Little Girl And Entered Competitions. I Loved Singing In Choirs, But It Was As I Got Older That I Really Found My Voice.

There Needs To Be A Shift In Consciousness; There Needs To Be An Absolute Wake-up Call Before Society Can Actually Make The Kind Of Incredibly Significant Changes That Need To Happen.

Significant Change

I Don't Want To Be Owned By A Corporation And Obliged To Make A Certain Type Of Album. I Want To Be Free.

Let Me Be The Only One To Keep You From The Cold Now The Floor Of Hell Is Laid, The Stars Are Bright As Gold They Light For You, They Shine For You They Burn For All To See Come Into These Arms Again And Set Your Spirit Free

In A Way, It's All Down To Perception, Isn't It? And Everyone Has Their Own Take On Everything.

What's Really Interesting Is When You Get A Brand-new Wave That Has No Connection To Anything Else. It Always Reflects Society. The Flappers Would Cut The Dresses And Make Them Looser, They Smoked, Their Hair Was Short. It Was A Rebellion Against The Corset And The Edwardian Era.

I Don't Think Feminism Is About The Exclusion Of Men But Their Inclusion... We Must Face And Address Those Issues, Especially To Include Younger Men And Boys.

If One Woman Is Suffering, Then We Are All Suffering, And We Need To Put A Voice To That.

I'm Not Living My Life Under The Spotlight For Anybody.

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I Had A Number Of Different Labels. A Lot Of People Assumed I Was Gay Because I Was Wearing A Man's Suit, And One Had To Learn That It's Ok, People Will Do That, And You Don't Always Have To Explain It One Hundred Percent, Because They're Never Going To Accept What Your Own Interpretation Is. It's All Illusory.

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I'm Very Intrigued That In This Culture Of Reality Television And Celebrity - Which Is An Enormous Industry And Generates Billions And Billions Of Dollars - We're So Resourceful.

If You Do Nothing, If A Mother Doesn't Come For Care, If She Breastfeeds Her Baby, The Chances Of The Baby Getting Hiv Are About 40%. So It's About The Difference Between 40% And Zero. This Is Almost Totally Preventable. But It Requires Mothers Coming For Care And Getting The Medicines They Need, And Getting The Education And Support They Need.

We Would Like To See The Virtual Elimination Of The Transmission Of [hiv] From Mother To Child By 2015. ... We Believe It Can Be Achieved With Political Will.

Every Artist Has To Make Their Own Statements And They Have To Live With Them.

Such Is The Scale And Depth Of Poverty In Many Parts Of The World That It Won't Be Ended Overnight. That Is Why If, Like Me, You Want To See An End To Poverty, You Need To Be In It For The Long Haul.

I Haven't Lived My Life Through My Daughters. Some Parents Devote Everything To Their Children, Which Must Be So Hard, And It's Very Beautiful. But I'm A Working Parent, So I've Always Kept My Own Life.

Women Empowering Other Women.they Get The Psycho-social Support. They Become Part Of A Community.

When You Go To Africa, And You See Children, They're Usually Barefoot, Dirty And In Rags, And They'd Love To Go To School.

It's Harder To Get Out Of Bed When You've Failed.

The Very Fact That The Planet Is Probably Unsustainable With All That We've Done To It And Are Doing To It, It's An Appalling Piece Of Evidence. It Shows Our Complacency, Our Lack Of Passion Or Inclination To Be Authentic And Really Understand Our True Values. It's Consistently Depressing, But Nevertheless, We Carry On.

I Am Fascinated By History And Particularly The Victorian Era.

We Think That This Is Just Our World And We Don't Know What Other People Are Thinking. Music Actually Is A Phenomenal Connector In That Respect. It's A Special Language That Defines Certain Boundaries And Connects People In A Particular Way, A Very Emotional Way, I Have Found.

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Jean-Claude Van Damme

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