Quotes from Annie Lennox

I don't want to be owned by a corporation and obliged to make a certain type of album. I want to be free.

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.

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.

I have always been a very visual person and a keen observer.

I am a communicator; that seems to be my natural place. And I'll always be passionate about the world, because it's so bonkers.

I'm appalled the word feminism has been denigrated to a place of almost ridicule and I very passionately believe the word needs to be revalued and reintroduced with power and understanding that this is a global picture.

I didn't want to be perceived as a girly girl on stage.

If we value what we've inherited for free - from other women - surely it's right morally and ethically for us to wake up and say, 'I'm a feminist. '

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.

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.

We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.

Life is not quantifiable in terms of age, but I suppose in my fifties I am more grounded and more at ease in my own skin than when I was younger. I have a confidence that I didn't have before from the experiences I've had.

I watch 'Mad Men,' I knit scarves, I cook and am very, very normal. Honestly.

The word feminism needs to be taken back. It needs to be reclaimed in a way that is inclusive of men.

I think life on the road really suits very egotistical men. It's set up for kings.

Men need to understand, and women too, what feminism is really about.

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.

There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won't.

I think music is the most phenomenal platform for intellectual thought.

I only want to make music because I have a passion for it.

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!

The inner world is very potent for me - I don't ascribe to any God or Jesus or Buddha - I just have a sense of it and revere it along with the natural world and human consciousness.

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 think people in Great Britain are a bit jaded sometimes.