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My mother says I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle. I love to talk. I just love to talk.

The newspapers were saying, 'You have AIDS.' They actually said I was dead. I just threw myself into my work when the whispering campaign turned really ugly.

I actually wanted to play the violin before I had polio, and then afterwards, there was no reason not to.

I'm scared of needles.

My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute.

I felt like if I wasn't around, maybe my shot would be gone.

I stopped smoking. When I stopped smoking, my voice changed... so drastically, I couldn't believe it myself.

It was early detection that saved my voice - and I imagine, my life.

Of my infancy I can speak little, only I do remember that in the fourth year of my age I had the measles.