Keanu Reeves is, like, the worst actor I've ever seen. I can't believe he's a movie star.

Doing interviews can sometimes mess up my head. It makes me feel dirty. It's frustrating how the press recycles a quote to death.

I could make a whole album with no one else involved at all. It would be a total, unadulterated expression of myself. Because whenever you have others playing on a project, their influence becomes a part of it.

What does it mean to a person whose identity is very wrapped up in the music she makes, if her worth is measured by how many records she sells?

Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share it with anyone to feel good about it.

I get a little sick of myself as a solo artist. I get a little bit bored.

I don't believe songs that try to say everything in a simple slogan.

I make music and I can't stop. It's a compulsion and an obsession and a curse.

At heart I am a librarian, a bird-watcher, a transcendentalist, a gardener, a spinster, a monk.

When I first started making music, I didn't really know what I was doing. I just wanted to write songs. I didn't have a concept. I didn't think it through. I was just flailing around doing what comes naturally. It took me a really long time to step back and deal with what I was doing with any kind of perspective or self-awareness.

You think you know who you are, and then other people have these other ideas.

I feel some kind of duty to be really, really honest as a writer. The same is true of my songwriting.

I'm kind of an emotional exhibitionist.

From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony.

The whole thing about rock music, pop music, is it's really for kids.

I want to paint. That is probably going to sound so pretentious coming from someone who's been a musician.

Human relations, I mess them up, and they let me down.

For a long time, music was hope. Now it seems music isn't enough to make me happy. It used to be that's all I needed to keep going. Now I need other things to take up the other parts of my life.

My songs are about not knowing who to be and not knowing how to act.

When I start writing, I'll have a vague concept or I'll just have a title, and the song just goes on its own direction. Usually it goes in many directions within each song. They get really convoluted sometimes.

I like people wanting to know about me.

I love playing in front of people. I feel powerful, 'cause I don't have to really say anything - I'm just singing.

All I'm trying to do is to keep going and keep evolving.

I have many moods, and there is no objective reality. And I kind of live by that.