In school, I guess I was a difficult, know-it-all type of student... I was always complaining that music education was too academic.

How could I be so immature to think you could replace the missing elements in me. How extremely lazy of me.

I'm a little nervous. Definitely. Especially coming from an album like Biophilia, which was about the universe. This is more of a traditional singer/songwriter thing. When I started writing, I fought against it. I thought it was way too boring and predictable. But most of the time, it just happens; there's nothing you can do. You have to let it be what it is.

I want to support young girls who are in their 20s now and tell them: You're not just imagining things. It's tough. Everything that a guy says once, you have to say five times. Girls now are also faced with different problems. I've been guilty of one thing: After being the only girl in bands for 10 years, I learned - the hard way - that if I was going to get my ideas through, I was going to have to pretend that they - men - had the ideas.

I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in.

I'm not that keen on fierce dictatorship. I think that sort of the point of working with somebody is them coming up with stuff and feeling free to do that.

I'm self-sufficient. I spend a lot of time on my own and I shut off quite easily. When I communicate, I communicate 900 per cent, then I shut off, which scares people sometimes.