I think being a woman in any business that's dominated by men, you have your garden variety pros and cons, where you learn how to focus and harness your various powers and weaknesses for better or for good.

While we're over here blocked up in our departments and locked up in our own judgments and dealing with our own crazy problems, they're over there dealing with equivalent problems. One of the things that I am so frightened by lately is that men are having just as difficult a time striking a balance as we are.

The impulse to connect the dots - and to share what you've connected - is the urge that makes you an artist

I remember being a teenager and being really impressed by "let's sit around and b*tch" people, and I have so little time for those people nowadays.

I have never in my career embarked on a journey towards controversy. I have never deliberately set a flame.

If you're going to make work and you're going to write and you're going to put yourself out there and perform, you will be belittled, you will be insulted, you will be called a standard collection of names, you will be accused, and you just have to stand there and continue to work and find a way to not let those things poison you.

I think the thing you're seeing now with the music industry is that the people who have tight-knit communities are now able to really hold each other up because of the internet tools. And the really top-down pyramid scheme of major labels and typical superstars isn't sustainable anymore because the system has collapsed.