I was surrounded by music in my family, surrounded by people who sang songs - every single person I knew as a child growing up had one, two, three songs they knew from start to finish.

I thought I would be a visual artist when I was growing up, so I'm always up for a bit of experimentation.

There's a great deal of tension between so many kind of distinctive and restrictive female archetypes and images in the world. When you play with the archetypes, you get free.

I became a singer and a songwriter by learning on the spot, so think I always need to be slightly out of my comfort zone when I do something. I've never stopped being experimental because that's how I started.

I came from a family in Texas who simply never spoke about money.

All these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race - racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic - what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race.

I am not from a film family or a Mumbai girl. The probability of getting a second chance is low, and so one has to be more careful.

When I left my parents' home when I was 19, I went to the University of Florida, and within 24 hours was in the mental health department. And within 20 minutes, I was being told by the director there that they didn't have what I needed there.