Quotes from Netta Barzilai

I see my music as a visual thing. When I'm on stage I am very expressive with my face and through my performance - kind of like an actress but not really, it just rises up from inside with the music.

My presence and my voice on stage, it sends a clear message that you can do whatever you want in your life, break barriers, stigmas - be the new standard.

I want to empower and love, to be empowered and empower others. Because when we send out good energy, it comes back at us and makes the world a better place.

I tried to get a job in music but was too unique to stand behind someone as a backing vocal or to sing in weddings.

I wanted to do pop music, and I wanted to dance. I wanted all this because that was me. This is my inner performer, that is what it wants, this is what my heart wants.

I was told all my life to sing like Aretha Franklin, or Adele, cover myself with black clothing and show more soul, sing bigger.

I know when I was a kid I saw only one color of beauty, I saw only one kind in all the billboards and all magazines and the video clips. One kind and it was so frustrating.

I am a very poppy little girl. I wasn't allowed to be poppy at first because y'know in my mind, pop stars are thin and beautiful and light, and I've never felt beautiful, skinny and light.

I work with an amazing team - I have a stylist and a hairdresser and make-up artist who are always wondering what I am going to do next!

Israel is incredible, it throws the best party ever and people should come.

I was a big girl considering herself beautiful, which is in conservative Israel had never been seen.

As you can see me, genetically, my brothers and I are all kind of the same. We all have this chubby little appearance and we all have a sweet tooth, so our mother really tried her best to forbid this kind of stuff in our house.

I believed what people said, that I don't deserve to be a leader because of the way I look. That I don't deserve to be popular, that I don't deserve to be loved. I'm not intelligent.

I worked as a barista and a kindergarten teacher. I really love kids and enjoyed every minute of being in a kindergarten.

Tell me where to sing to solve the world's problems and I'll go.

I made 'Ricki Lake' as a big love show for the American culture: big jars of mayo and ketchup and industrial stuff and capitalism, which I celebrate, because I believe that the criticism comes with love.

When I was about 10 years old, the 'Ricki Lake show' aired in Israel, and it was the first time I was exposed to American reality culture.

I started with soul music and icons like Aretha Franklin and Etta James and then moved to R&B and artists such as Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. Electronic music came later on, when I was in high school and I was really influenced by artists like Skrillex and Major Lazer.

I like to mix things up and I take inspiration from many different art forms.

It's amazing to see how if we don't open our minds to something different, we wont evolve as a species.

I don't sing beautifully or grandly or in a very 'moving' way. I am me - which is not very beautiful at times, and not very organised or regular.

I didn't plan to go to Eurovision and I didn't plan on winning. I was a struggling musician, hoping for a couple of gigs.

For years I would sit on the side when my friends swam in the water. There is no feeling worse than that, to be afraid of what people will say about you, or to be embarrassed by who you are and what you are.