When I sing, my face changes shape. It feels like my skull changes shape... the bones bend.

The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?

The only goal is in the process. The process is in the thing with little flashes of light: those are the gigs, the live shows... it's the life in between. That's all I've got.

I disoriented myself from everything about being a human being and just played and played and played and sang and sang and sang.

I figured if I played in the no-man's land of intimacy, I would learn to be a performer.

I've already created my own thing.

I'm convinced I got signed because of who I am. And it makes me sad.

I made a statement all my own.

I resent the fact that a parental warning sticker has to be included on an album as cover art. To me that's censorship.

I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.

The Smiths hasn't been equaled. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics, and the performance.

In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge.

I don't want to do any more covers. It's good to learn to make things your own, but the education's over. 'Grace' is putting a lot of things to rest.

Critics try to pin so many different inaccuracies on me and my music; they look at the complicated things and try to simplify them. They think they can nail your whole life down just by knowing the bare bones of your history in partaking in 10 minutes of conversation.

There was a time when I stopped singing, between 16 and 19, but that was done on purpose, maybe as a punishment, maybe as a cure.

The music comes from within and outside. Within is the big mystery of life; we've all got it.

I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13.

All music industry places are the same, really. They have the same dynamics and the same concerns and the same needs.

A song just doesn't have verse-chorus-verse. It could just be one line. There are Chinese love songs that you have to learn one melody for a three-minute thing, and nothing ever repeats. I like that.

What I'm trying to do is just sing what comes to my body in the context of the song. And if you go by the emotion of the song, it's almost like stepping into a city. Cities have certain customs and rules and laws you can break, and that's what I was doing.

In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge. I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing.

When I was 12, I decided to become a musician. 'Physical Graffiti' was the first album I ever owned.

I'm not 'Grace.' That album is like a brick onto itself. It's like a coffin that I put certain feelings and observations in so that they can be capsulized forever. I wanted to put them there so I would be free to move on.

There are times when what you do will be mysterious to everyone... times when you have to change directions before people are ready. Just because someone does something that critics don't like or understand doesn't mean you're failing as a musician. It probably means you're growing.

All these people that want to make me out as part of Generation X had better watch out, or they're going to get X'd out themselves.

I'm sick of all these labels and these manufactured subdivisions of music that don't even exist. And even though I'm pierced myself, I'm sick of everyone equating body piercing with musical courage. If you ask me, it takes a lot more than that.

I don't know any artists that are really emotionally well adjusted. In fact, I think we're all pretty much insane.

Grace is a quality in people that I just enjoy. It's a very human quality.

The music business is the most childish business in the world. Nobody knows what they're selling or why, but they sell it if it works.

I'm convinced part of the reason I got signed is because of who I am, and it makes me sad.

I once took a ride to the beach in L.A., and all along the shore there were all these so-called jazz places. And I saw these college guys and session players playing this fusion Muzak stuff. It was just a lot of notes, and the more notes they played, the more it kept them from expressing anything. So I came back home and got out my Zeppelin albums.

More than any other place, New York is where I felt I belonged. I prefer the Lower East Side to any place on the planet. I can be who I am there, and I couldn't do that anywhere I lived as a child. I never fit in when I lived in California, even though that's where my roots are.

I'm far from being a consummate artist. I mean, this is just my first album, and the work is very new. I'm just beginning, and I'm certainly not worthy of demigod status. There's absolutely no danger of me reaching that.

If you're going to write, then write a novel with a Haitian woman in it and try and describe her accurately. When you can do that, you can write about people.

On my record cover, you can barely see my face. I still think I look really geeky.

When I was a kid. I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13. Crappy rock bands, avant-garde things where we'd, like, 'wanna go against the norm, man.'

I dunno... I feel out of step. Musically. Just out of step, not even behind or ahead. Just sort of like... I dunno, sometimes I feel like I'm still... just not... in sync. I don't know how to explain it. I just am.