I don't set out to write something. I more just write, and later on, I discover what it's about.

What's important to me is that my songs can exist without any material anything. It's very reflective of my ideology.

I actually love the summer. When I went to Miami on tour, I was actually like, 'I love this place.'

In my first few years of being in New York, I had a major identity crisis because I'd never stayed in one place for so long.

I think my whole identity is formed around not knowing where I'm from. It might even be that I find comfort in that confusion.

I understand that, because there are so many musicians, you have to make artists into brands, but I sometimes feel like I have to be some kind of non-human icon in order for people to listen to my music.

I have my privileges, but I do feel like at every turn there is such resistance. Things seem to take so much longer for me to do. I have to say things 10 times instead of once. I have to knock on 10 different doors instead of two. For everything. All the time. I feel like I'm not taken seriously.

I really like The Cars. They're just so over the top and super pop, but I don't feel guilty. I'm proud of all the music I listen to.

Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.

Often I've had problems automatically bending to a lover's will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, 'This is what I love!'

With solo shows, you have complete control over the set list. If you feel like you want to do something different or do a new song, you can just work it in. You can talk to the audience or not talk to the audience. There's nothing that's set.

There's this myth that women are supposed to compete with each other or something, or we're supposed to hate each other, and that's totally not productive.

When I record, it's this very precious and insular thing.

I think your ego gets in the way of making something good because it kind of blinds you from the actual art.

On tour, I don't drink, because I don't think in any other job you are supposed to get to work and drink whisky.

Sometimes when I perform, and it's obvious the audience is just there to party, or if I feel a wall between me and the audience, I get existential about it.

I took a few piano lessons as a kid, but it didn't last; I just learned piano from doing it over and over on my own, because I didn't have many friends, and there was always a keyboard in the house.

It's nice to know there's a big world with many perspectives. I tend to get so stuck in my own small world easily, and going out into the world reminds me that I'm not the center of the world - in a good way.

I'm so smart. I am good at doing math really quickly in my head.

I'd always been fascinated by death, which sounds so morbid. Especially being a woman trying to make music, I think there's a sense that you're never young enough, or your career is going to end soon.

I think music is supposed to be shared.

I tend to kind of try to use what's in my environment to the best of my ability rather than seek out things that I don't already have.

I'm not an innovator.

If I ever found a place where I belonged, that in itself would be an identity crisis to me.

I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that's important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.

I was one of those girls people called 'intense.'

I don't want to be elitist.

I think people don't realize how little of being an artist is making art.

I think it's very dangerous as an artist to be comfortable.

I'm Japanese, and I'm also white American, and neither camp wants me in their camp.

I think what's hard for me is not that I don't get downtime to chill, it's that I don't get time to make music.

You can never learn enough about music.

I lived abroad most of my life in insular international communities.

I feel like I've always wanted to live in one place and stay in one place, but I always end up choosing things that make me travel.

Maybe this is a made-up belief to preserve myself, but I do believe that everyone has a purpose, and my purpose is to put out music that means something.

When you're doing something you're not used to, you kind of realize that you're still a kid: even though the whole world around you sees you as an adult and you're expected to act like an adult, you still haven't actually grown up.

When someone is a musician - trying to make a living off being a public figure - it's really easy for people to see me as a face on a screen that doesn't have a personal life.

Miyazaki movies were what I was raised on. I've watched them since I was very young, and I've been greatly shaped by them.

I don't think I have the kind of creativity to write fiction.

When you love someone and care about them, you want what's best for them, and it's always the hardest thing to realize maybe you aren't what's best for them, how hard you try.

It would actually feel forced or unnatural to try to do a different singing style or to try to change my sound completely.

Whenever I've tried to ingratiate myself to an existing community, I tend to give too much, to become whatever it is they want me to be. It's something I do automatically - I've learnt to immediately adapt.

Pop artists work really hard, and they might not work for the same things that indie artists do, but they're still musicians, and they're still making art.

I really just care about making music and how I can make it next.

I've stopped wanting a home, I think, because I've been on tour all my life, basically.

I try to be regimented and try to stay healthy and work out and eat properly and go to sleep. And not get too caught up in the industry in my regular life, so I can save all my expression and energy for my art.