If you're stuck in a situation that's painful or there's something that makes you angry, it can enable you to step back from your own experience of it and realize that this is just a part of what it is to be human. It can allow you to accept it a little bit more and make you feel like it's less unfair.

I have to say what I do is not easy and there are definitely moments where I feel inadequate to the tasks I've set for myself. And that's hard to feel - like you're giving your life to something and you can't really do it as well as you want to do it.

This is something I think that blues music, or folk music, and all those particular genres that have a perspective about life deal with - where the difficulties of life are seen as something that are very natural and nothing to be embarrassed about, and something that we all go through; something that's part of our share of humanity. And it accepts those difficulties and pain as such. I think there's a wonderful forgiveness that can come over you, if you have that perspective on it.

You are connected to something very much larger than yourself. And that's a beautiful thing.

How long have you been sitting in the darkness? You forget. You know you're getting hard to be with and you're crying every time you turn around. Oh my crazy baby, try to hold on tight. Oh my crazy baby, don't put out the light. And your hands are shaking something awful as your worries crawl around inside your clothes.

Oh, deeply vulnerable as a woman - to love someone not knowing whether they love me in return.

I try to use pain as fuel for my work.