I think music is the only thing that I'll ever really have.

I'd like to be very wise.

I'm only just learning what language to use when I want my microphone turned down, you know, because it's all so new to me. It can be quite difficult on a daily basis to communicate with the people I work with, so I'm just looking forward to knowing more.

I've always been slightly afraid of coming out with my record because it's so personal to me. Now it doesn't feel as frightening as I thought it would.

It was never a conscious decision - I was introducing myself as Duffy and my friends were calling me Duffy, so I just knocked off the first half of my name. For me it's no big deal, but a lot of people want to unearth why I've called myself this. It's just what I'm known as, you know.

When my family all got together, I'd always get up and entertain everyone, but it was all a bit of a joke. My first real memory of singing for people was when I was about eleven or 12.

No one wants to read a math book.

I like a good fun chick-lit book as much as I like historical fiction, mysteries, or biographies, I like to be well-rounded!

It's hard to listen to the news every day and have everyone saying you're the Antichrist.

No one is reading my diary, that's for sure.

When you have a couple hundred people in one huge space, that's gonna lead to jokes and it's a breeding ground for practical jokes and teasing.

I think any time you have a workplace that's heavily weighted to men just by the nature of what it is, the same way you can say PR or fashion is heavily occupied by women, there's always going to be a little bit of that sexism.

It seemed glamorous when I used to go into work and get to be on a trading floor or see how the business worked a little bit before I ever understood what it was.

The truth is, I can't help the way people perceive anything, from the role of financial industry in the economic crisis, to the place of women's fiction in the canon of modern literature, to the rank of mint chocolate chip ice cream as a favorite Baskin-Robbins flavor.

When I left Merrill Lynch, one of the things that upset me the most wasn't losing my job. It was not being able to see those people the following day. It was almost like divorcing 40 people.