Paula Cole

I like women who can throw a ball and laugh loud and have some spine, and I like men who don't mind cooking dinner.

So I'm writing more highly personalized and intellectual music, and I think that's good. It might take longer to find me, but I think that niche is perhaps underserved, so I'm going to serve that.

I like doing the crossword puzzle in the New York Times, not watching E! on TV.

People have become less discriminating listeners, which is tragic, really. There's a lot of emperor's new clothes out there, whether they're female or male solo acts. That bothers me. It's hard to break through, and it's like climbing Mount Everest if you actually do.

I was curious and hungry at a young age, and jazz was such a mystery to me, an ocean where you can express yourself in the moment. It represented freedom, it represented wearing wings and going somewhere with music.

I'm still trying to find out who Paula Cole is. I always am - and I always will be - my real, inside self, which has no name.

I see my albums as working diaries, as living scrapbooks of me and my life.

I think of my shows as family reunions. I give 100% every time. I just do. It's a huge therapeutic release. Also I love my touring family. And I love my audiences very much.

I'm raising my daughter with her grandparents in the picture, and that feels good.

Didgeridoo was something I picked up while I was on tour in Australia with Peter Gabriel in '93. I found out later that it's only meant to be played by men.

But at the age of 44, I sure hope to be a better businesswoman. I want to get the music straight to my fans.

At the age of 15 months my daughter was diagnosed with very bad asthma, and essentially I put my career on hold for a good eight years.

I think it's important to find the little things in everyday life that make you happy.

I'm a songwriter who's put my childhood memories and teenage angst into songs.

The older I get, the more I see that there really aren't huge zeniths of happiness or a huge abyss of darkness as much as there used to be. I tend to walk a middle ground.

When you're a plebeian you want success, and when you're successful you want to be a plebeian again.

I don't like to sit and bask in my own awards. Awards represent artistic death to me.

The monsters are in your own head.

I've left Bethlehem, and I feel free. I've left the girl I was supposed to be, and some day I'll be born.

I'm glad I made a piece of art that can be interpreted so widely. Art is always interpreted subjectively.