We spend so much time condemning, critiquing, and copying culture we miss on actually changing it. Be a creator not a hater.

I'd rather have the thieves than the neighbors - the thieves don't impose. Thieves just want your things, neighbors want your time. I'd rather give them things than time.

Most of the time I'm thinking, I'm glad that scene was improvised.

When I was living in New York, there was a lot of screaming in my life. I would just get into these altercations all the time. Being in public, dealing with shopkeepers, just trying to cross the street - things like that.

It has to do - I think - with growing up in an apartment, with my aunt and my cousins right next door to me, with the door open, with neighbors walking in and out, with people yelling at each other all the time.

The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

It's sort of like my past is an unfinished painting, and as the artist of that painting, I must fill in all the ugly holes and make it beautiful again.

And now, I'm just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time.

When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time.

Well, that's your opinion, isn't it? And I'm not about to waste my time trying to change it.

"And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction."

I'm a bookworm. I know with my physical appearance that I don't look like the typical reader. I'm in Barnes & Noble all the time, and you can look at people that look like they are supposed to be in there. I am in there, pants sagging, hat backwards.

“That’s how confidence grows—one small, courageous move at a time.” 

“I have a hard time finding the balance between not beating myself up when it doesn’t happen as fast as I’d like it to, and not wasting time while I wait for it to happen.” 

Getting on the bus and touring was my life. And when that was not around, I felt myself a bit lost at times, because that was all I had.

What is the worst is a fashion designer who talks all the time of his or her creativity, what they are, how they evolved. Just do it and shut up.

I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.

For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it.

If 'Party of Five' hadn't done well, it would have been a bunch of names involved in the demise. But if 'Time of Your Life' doesn't do well, it will be my name. You have to prepare for the worst. This is a very fickle business.

You have to be very insensitive in order to have a cat, because I think they're very independent. When they're kittens, you think they're going to have a dog temperament in that they're going to run to the door when you get home, lick you on the face and cuddle with you all the time, but cats are not that way.

It's all about being comfortable, being easy and having you be able to wear something and not having it wear you. It's classic. Every time I've tried to be bold and crazy, I feel like a Japanese animated cartoon character.

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for every time of life--is this: 'Never hurt anybody.

Every two, three years there is a movie about the Holocaust because they want you to remember and they want you to be reminded of what it was. When was the last time you seen a movie about slavery?