I was lucky to have read a lot of poetry when I was younger; it helped me to remember a way to write.

I started understanding William Blake and George Orwell more and more. It's amazing how we go to school when we're so young, read all of these books, just trying to memorize them. When you start to live, you don't have to memorize anything.

When I started writing again, especially when I listened to French music and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I realized that these lots talked about themselves. The greatest artists, they didn't sing; they only spoke.

I know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it's quite small and contained.

When I started singing about my life and what I was going through, I felt more confident. It was my own life, I was being myself, I was telling people what was happening.

William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.

If I'm being forced to do something I don't want to do, my real self comes out. But whether or not I'm aware of it, no matter what happens, I'm always going to have a fake self and I'm not going to judge my fake self.