If language were liquid, it would be rushing in. Instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be.

Last year's troubles, They shine up so prettily, They gleam with a lustre they don't have today.

The first song I wrote was the first song I remember thinking, "Well, maybe I can do something here." The very first one. By the second one I knew I could do something.

I wasn't afraid of going places or doing new things. I would do just about anything or go anywhere. I'd get a notion in my mind and just follow it.

I still consider myself a feminist.

That said, I've never thought the fact that I'm a woman was important to my work.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that theres a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.