I grew up in Southern California, so the whole concept of a local music history is still kinda novel to me.

There are stylists I really love. I'm a huge Joan Didion fan - if I wrote something that she might like, then I'd feel very proud. I want the action to move as quickly as it does in A Book of Common Prayer, where one thing bonks right into another very quickly.

The studio's a collaborative environment. I just try to let people bring their own ideas to the songs and see what happens.

Anything that is within you is a gift. To be able to take possession of that and say, "Whatever it is, I am bigger than it," is to learn to cherish even the hard and painful things.

Men tend to dominate whatever public discourse they participate in, and another big part of feminism is to let women have their say. Men's voices can be welcome at the table, but there is a time and a place, and maybe it's now, for men to make a little less noise, make their needs less known, and listen to the needs of others.

Everybody experiences reality in a way that's only true for them.

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun.