Writing is always personal in some way but not always in a direct way.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized. Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that. That's why I write the way I do.

I had some fears as a kid, but I was also relatively fearless. Maybe that's a result of living half the time in reality and the other half in fantasy.

I always thought that if I was popular I must be doing something wrong.

Kindness to me is only powerful if it has the cruel streak behind it. If someone is kind all the time under all circumstances, they're just simple-minded. Kindness is only worth something if you have the cruel streak to back it up.

But I never want to get to the point where I write a safe song or one that represents my sense of a subject in order to appear civilized.

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