When I was sixteen, I began to think outside the box of my small town. Not that the people in my small town are in a box - they're not! There's a brilliant college there, and I had brilliant teachers from that college. But in terms of a conservative upbringing, which I did have within my own family, I just began to question things and to think for myself.

To me, the housewife who puts her teacups unwashed in the sink because her husband won't wash them, is political. Every act is political: the things you do, as well as the things you omit doing; the things you refuse to do; the things you fail to do; the things you say, as well as the things you don't say.

If you just take one foot in front of the other without any protection, you may end up falling off the fence.

I always sing them as though they are autobiographical, even if they're not, and most of my songs do come from something about me.

When I was sixteen, I began to think outside the box of my small town. Not that the people in my small town are in a box - they're not! There's a brilliant college there, and I had brilliant teachers from that college. But in terms of a conservative upbringing, which I did have within my own family, I just began to question things and to think for myself.

My daughter could do and be anything, without having to fight to get through the glass ceiling. Without having it be so extraordinary. If my daughter went to produce a soundtrack for a movie, there would be nothing extraordinary about a girl doing it. When I did it, it was highly unusual.

Every straight man I know is a feminist. They wouldn't be my friends if they weren't.