Most of my records are never going to be commercial successes, and I don't expect that. It's just all a learning process to me. If something appears as a failure, fine. If there's success, fine. I like the record, and my friends like the record, and that's kind of all I can really care about.

I think that's such an important message, especially for younger women, to know, 'I don't have to come out of the womb painting like Frida Kahlo. My very first thing that I make isn't going to be an around-the-world sensation.' You have to paint a hundred really ugly, barfy, diarrhea paintings before you come up with that one where you start to really get into your groove.

I belive power can be used for good, I don't think every form of power is absolute evil. I wish I would have stepped in, and I really regret it. And that's why I really encourage young people who are organizing to speak up.

As I've gotten older, I've realized that things are a lot more permeable. It's not so black and white: not every journalist is a jerk.

People can be in a prison of their own mind. [There are] people who don't have their hearts open to other people's ideas, and can't listen to other people's ideas without feeling like they're being slapped in the face. Those people are more in a prison.

One of the reasons I went back to music even though I was extremely ill was because I started to forget who I was aside from being sick. And when I'm performing, or even lecturing, it's like I'm myself again, and that was a really amazing discovery - that, all of a sudden, I have a get-out-of-jail-free card.

It takes your mind off things when there's a cat in your lip and he's purring while you're petting him.