When I was turning 40, I felt that there were no books out there that hit the spot in terms of what I wanted to read.

If you leave home for a while ... you question the conventional wisdom you've grown up with. That doesn't mean you have to change your opinions or who you are, but it's good to ask the questions.

When you say you're 40, you can't call yourself an ingenue any more.

Whenever people ask me how I manage to get through this whole crazy time of being incredibly famous and sort of an icon and supposedly a role model and all of this insanity, I always cite my family and then books. I don't know what I would have done without books.

My dad has always just had a lot of faith in me as an artist and as a person, and he doesn't really dispense with a lot of advice when it comes to the music. He's taught me a lot over the years, but when I was taking on this project he's really hands-off about that. He just appreciates what I've done and is very supportive, and of course really proud.

I can't believe I gave my panties to a geek.

I feel like women very often do write differently than men, but women write things that men can't write.