My songs are not pretty. They're what I call optimistic realism.

The female psyche is inherently self-sufficient, because female sexuality is inherently self-sufficient. I think women are maybe more comfortable, or women are able to find physical beauty in each other that doesn't terrify them.

Basically what Salomé did with Rilke as a mentor was direct him toward the Russian Orthodox Church, so he could project his love of the divine feminine onto the Virgin Mary. She wanted him to stop the cycle of being disappointed by the ultimate humanity of women. She was like, "You don't want me, you want the Virgin Mary." It's kind of a mystical concept! She also changed Freud's opinion, a little bit too late, about the female psyche, which he had so wrong. If it had been better publicized, it would have changed Western society's perception of the female psyche, too.

Womanhood is something you don't consider until it hits you.

I remember my father playing me Same Situation when I was a nipper, and saying how nobody since has done melodies as well as Joni Mitchell. I concur. The thing that most affected me was just her resonance, and that is something she must have been born with.

I think your most intimate thoughts are only honest when they're in your head.

My songs are not pretty. They're what I call optimistic realism.