There's no point in getting too worried about things, because life is too short.

I always come across like I'm looking serious, but I just don't like smiling. Honestly, obviously I'm different in person.

It's important to take time off because it's a long journey this life, and I want to be singing in 30 years' time. You see a lot of artists who get caught up in the here and now, and they just burn themselves out, and I kind of did that myself with my third album.

You know that band that are all over 'Melody Maker,' Huggy Bear, they're just a load of crap, right? Riot grrrl group - y'know, it's all sexism and stuff, women standing up for their rights: 'This girl said this at the gig off the stage.' It's nothing got to do with music. They're probably untalented gits when it comes to the crunch.

I try to think about optimism. I try to look at the beautiful things in life.

I'm an icon. I'm the Queen of Limerick.

I look like that in the morning: my hair's all greasy - it's not, 'Hey, look at the babe of the band!' I hate that kind of thing, the way women are always pushed forward as beauties... it's very easy: you can make the ugliest pig look lovely in a photograph.

When everybody's looking at you, it does your head in. When you're always on the inside, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.

U2 and Sinead O'Connor - I haven't a clue why we're compared to them. Apart from us all being Irish, we've nothing in common.

I was a full-time mom for seven years. You go back on tour, you're back in hotels, you're ordering room service, and you're getting an itinerary slipped under your door every,day. You're kind of thinking, 'Did I go home for seven years, or was that just a dream?'

In 1997, we took time off, and that's when Oasis broke and Princess Diana died and I was home with my baby hating the music industry. People asked what I thought about the Spice Girls, and honestly, I was so happy to tell them I couldn't be bothered to care.

Once you succeed at what you're doing, your parents see that what you were doing wasn't so bad after all, though they'd prefer to see you in a secure lifestyle where you have a contract for years and years, or you have a diploma or degree.

I lived in buses. I didn't really have anything else. I didn't feel like a female, and I ended up really kind of isolated. Everybody thinks you're so happy and so wealthy and such a big star, but you're really kind of lonely and don't know how to stop it.

My priorities were taking the kids to school and being a mum and being a daughter and being a sister. Just spending a lot of that time with my family that I'd probably lost a lot of, touring with the Cranberries.

I'm an artist, and I need to work, like everybody. We need to be challenged and that we're getting up and doing something with our lives.

When my grandfather died, I was on tour, and I didn't go to the funeral. I never got to say goodbye, and this is one of the problems of being in a rock band is that you're away, and your loved ones die, and you can't even see them.

Men have no idea how much more difficult it is for women in the rock and roll industry, and while we are trying to give birth, breastfeed, all they do is have a good time.

I don't appreciate people invading my privacy.

When the Greatest Hits came out and we did that tour, I just felt I wanted to take a break, totally. Probably because, as well, I was so young when I got famous. I did album, tour, album, tour, album, tour, then I had a public nervous breakdown where I just lost tons of weight.

You can't be in a situation where you are not happy. It's as simple as that.

The school I went to was so Gaelic that you learned how to play the tin whistle and how to Irish-dance in class.

Why can't we actually sing and get respected as good singers and songwriters without having our boobs and butt hanging out?

I went to Irish dance when I was four. I was playing the tin whistle when I was five. So I think certain things are bred into you.

Room service is nice. Ooh-la-la, a hotel. At home, it's laundry and school lunches.

In Canada, anything that's not in the city is referred to as a cottage. Or a log cabin.

We all wonder about death, where people go and what happens. But certainly, they cross over from this dimension to another one.

I love to go home to my kids. I don't have that lull in my life when I didn't have them.

The feeling that's in your heart all the time comes out spiritually in your voice and the music.

I lived in a small village outside the city and grew up in a large family, so my world was very much centred around that. I used to sing in the local church, and I would also occasionally sing in the local pubs for which I used to get a few bob. That, for me, was the start of my interest in music, which has obviously expanded since then.

I've come to the conclusion that life is for the taking and just too short to dwell on the negative.

'Linger' was the first song I wrote after joining the Cranberries. I was 18, and the youngest member of the band was 16 at the time. We never imagined it'd be such a big hit.

Growing up, there was a lot of pressure for women to be good-looking, but my mum was very strict, and she didn't allow me to wear make-up. Looking back, it was good for me. It slowed me down from becoming an adult too quickly.

I am just trying to live for my kids. It is all about my kids now. I love them endlessly.

Sometimes your kids give you that shove out the door to do things that you need. Teenagers are good that way; they keep you in the loop.

I didn't know initially whether I'd like doing TV and whether I'd be able to work with other people. I've always done my own thing. I've never put myself into that situation, but it's the most fun I've had in years.

I was so young when I got so famous, and then I kind of put up a wall around myself. I didn't really want to show people any fragilities or fears; I was trying to be this tough person that I felt was expected of me.

What's amazing is - I actually have problems getting it into my head - Canada is so big, right? And Ireland's small, you know; you drive from coast to coast in three hours.

For an artist or an entertainer, it's the ultimate when you can go to the forest when you're done your work and escape.

A lot of these songs just came from day-to-day experiences. And it was a very natural, kind of organic process.

When The Cranberries got really big in Ireland, it became difficult for me to be there with all the photographers and paparazzi.

Only we were in The Cranberries. Only we know what it was like being in that crazy whirlwind of fame. We have children and spouses and lives, but there is only one Cranberries.

My father, I spent a lot of time with him at the hospital. I was with him when he took his last breath, but I felt something coming from him into my hand and into my body.

I think there's a difference between somebody who grows up in Paris or London and goes to Los Angeles. But if you grow up in the green fields, and you rarely go into the city, you're so overprotected that when you do go to L.A., it's almost a bigger slap in the head.

My husband Don's mother, Denise, was diagnosed with cancer, and she was given eight months to live. We decided to go and stay there and help live her days with her, 'cause you don't get those chances again, right?

I didn't get a lot of attention from my dad when I was young. That's a big part of it for girls. Because your dad is the first love of your life. If he doesn't put you on his lap and give you a pet, you do end up not really liking yourself that much.

I was 19 when I wrote 'Dreams,' and that would have been when it started to happen. The band got signed, and I was probably beginning to see different things besides my small town of Ballybricken.

It's very difficult to break in Europe unless you break in England, and it's very difficult to break in England if you're Irish.

When I was about 14, I got a tacky keyboard for 250 pounds and put on a drum machine and found I could write a song.

I worked myself into a frenzy. By 1996, I had a nervous breakdown just from working. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, just getting anxiety attacks and all of that stuff because I was doing too much, too young, all the time.

It was different to what everyone else was doing. It was very hard to pigeonhole The Cranberries. And we were just huge; it was just sensational.