"When I was singing, everybody liked me."

"I like to cook, but mostly Greek. When I am confused or tired, I think about what I can cook. It takes you away from everything, as you are thinking only of your dish."

"For my convalescence, I had to exercise my voice only with vowels. It is a medical rule after a long loss of voice."

"My friends gave me the first songs which was the first food in my soul for me."

"With my songs I tried to prove that there is love."

"When I was very young I was the ugly duckling. I had a lot of complexes. My sister was wonderful and I was nothing."

"Once I was condemned to three months' absolute silence. As I could not speak, I wrote a book."

"I left the table where there were important people and had lunch with my husband and a few friends. The reception was organised in my honour, so it was rather amusing."

"I thought it was respectful to each country to sing in their language."

"The idea of the European community is never face a war again."

"Every time I would open my mouth to sing, everybody was paying attention to me. It became a habit."

"I grew up thinking that singing was my security."

"The secret is to cook the aubergines the day before and let them dry of all the oil they drank in cooking. When you cook aubergine, they eat a lot of oil. It can be very heavy."

"One of the most wonderful memories in my life was when I sang at the Opera House in Sydney. I will never forget that. It is one of the most beautiful Houses I have ever sung in my life."

"The Berlin Wall go down, that was the most wonderful thing that could happen, absolutely. I celebrated with everybody in Berlin that day when the Wall was down."

"When I heard his first songs, Dylan was answering certain questions that I had all my life been asking myself."

"UNICEF has made the most rewarding thing that I have ever done in my life."

"If I was sad or afraid, I would sit in a corner and sing. If I was happy I would jump into the middle of the room and sing. It was how I expressed my emotions."

"When you want something very dearly, you make the time."

"Wherever you turn, there is always something wrong with the politicians. They have everything they need to save the world, and they don't save it."

"There were wonderful moments when I was singing for the first time in the Olympia Theatre and I was pregnant with my son, which was very, very strange for a singer."

"I do believe that if you haven't learnt about sadness, you cannot appreciate happiness."

"My energy to sing, I get it from my singing. Singing was not a reason to make a living. This is the only thing I wanted to do."

"When I started to work with UNICEF, it was a new way of giving some love and care to the world."

"I think sometimes you are born with a song."