When I am onstage, singing all these songs... what's going through my mind is nothing. That's what's so amazing about meditation - achieving that state, getting to a place where you're clear and present. I'm not thinking about anything except connecting with an audience.

I think I'm more effective as an activist if I stay in music, to be honest. Music, the way it reaches people and transcends divisions, is a really effective and powerful forum.

I feel I must acknowledge that gay people are, generally speaking, funnier, more self-sufficient, and better in crises and I should step aside and let them handle the business whenever it comes up.

Because I grew up trapped in the suburbs 8 miles outside of D.C. and I've never seen what people who live in D.C. look like.

Some of the folks we see are in for defending themselves against their abusers, or drug charges that, because of the California state prison system, they have mandatory sentencing and life in prison for three counts of simple drug possession, or whatever. I find it not only helpful but, I think, necessary in maintaining my grounding and my perspective. Because music is such an unrealistic job to have. It's a really lucky job to have, but it's also very unrealistic.

If you're a woman musician, that is your qualifier. I've had people come up to me and say, "You're good for a girl." My only issue is, when that stereotype and stigma already exists, sometimes it's perpetuated by people who may not really play guitar. You somehow need to transcend that division of gender.

Sometimes I say things in interviews and then I see them in print and I think, "What an asshole."