Carly Simon

Well, I tried to get a record deal in 1966 or '67, and everyone thought I was too eclectic.

I just want to show off my scar proudly and not be afraid of it.

Do you know how many concerts I've done in my whole life, in more than 35 years of performing? Sixty-four.

We need role models who are going to break the mold.

Sometimes, but the year I lived in France I started to write songs.

My scar is beautiful. It looks like an arrow.

There was a French singer, Francoise Hardy — I used to look at her pictures and try to dress like her.

You know when you take the paint off an old canvas and you discover that something's been painted underneath it? That's what I feel like — that part of the old is coming through the new.

Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music.

As a singer I tried on all these hats, these voices, these clothes, and eventually out came me.

No, because I've never really changed my style that much.

My look was even more solidified when I started singing in Greenwich Village with my sister Lucy. We wore matching dresses as the Simon Sisters.

Then I went through a big Peggy Lee stage, then I became Annie Ross, then Judy Collins.

You know, people want to honor me, and on the one hand I just don't want to be a poster child; but on the other, I want to do something classy and great — something where the residuals will go to the cause.

You usually can't tell what's inspiring until you look back on it.

A really strong woman accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars.