Melissa Etheridge

“Our great Constitution challenges us to grow constantly.”

“What I do believe in is other worlds and spirits. There is some other power in control - levels of energy that perhaps we don't see.”

“I feel my heart break to see a nation ripped apart by it's own greatest strength - it's diversity.”

“I think I've been on a path ever since I was born, a path of high stress. I put myself, my career, it was a big old juicy carrot right in front of me for all of my life.”

“I believed in Obama for social issues. I believe he brought our nation together and healed our racial divide. Martin Luther King's dream came true when he was elected. That's huge.”

“I tell people that anything that could ever happen to you on stage has happened to me. My clothes have fallen off. I've fallen off the stage. I've gotten sick - anything.”

“What people don't get is that hair is such a big part of our identity.”

“I'm so cool that the kids come to my bedroom and go, 'Mom! Turn the music down!”

“Cancer's like the ultimate excuse. Who's gonna say, 'Oh, no, you have to show up for this one?' 'Hey, I got cancer. I can't be there.' It's the ultimate eraser.”

“I have found that I'm just political just by being who I am.”

“I'm not one for big public displays of affection, anyway. Straight, gay, whatever.”

“Instead of taking five or six of the prescriptions, I decided to go a natural route and smoke marijuana.”

“I've worked since I was 11 years old, playing music and following the dream, and shaking and moving and doing it. And then, you have cancer and it was like 'Ooooohh.' It was like a big eraser. It was the only thing in my life that had ever made me just stop.”

“There's been so many different types of musicals, and it's a funny genre because there's a fine line between clever and stupid. It really takes a genius to know how to do it.”

“Our society, where we are right now, our minds are junkyards. We watch TV and sit on the computer all day and barely have an original thought.”

“I'm very fortunate that I have a wonderful family around me and loved ones.”

“I stand before you a totally healthy person.”

“I always tell people I'm grateful for my cancer diagnosis because it was the greatest gift because it completely changed my life. I was able to stop and let my whole life and world just crash over me like a wave. And I stood there and went, 'Wow.' And for the first time, I stopped everything. I had to.”

“I would never say I had a bad childhood at all.”

“All men, and women, and everything in between are created equal.”