We had experienced so much as kids, and I kind of feel like we learned a lot about the industry that put a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth, whether it was a couple of people we worked with or whether it was just trying to find the right inspiration or what have you.

I think we felt like we'd done so much as young kids that we didn't know how to top ourselves. We were like, 'Is this where it ends? Is this as good as it gets? Maybe we're done. Throw in the towel.'

If God is first, and you kind of center everything else around Him being the main focal point, you really can make decisions that will not only mold you, but God will see exactly how you're making your decisions and then will bless you for it.

Status doesn't matter; fame doesn't matter. You have to be really, really grounded in who you are and feel good as a person inside.

I started to understand that for me, art was no longer about self-expression but about creative engagement with the world. I started to respond in an excited way to making work inside an industry and not feeling the constraints of audience expectation as some kind of thing that I should avoid.

In my life, looking at other women who have been pregnant while writing, I always feel like it's kind of their most musical or the closest to themselves. I think for me it's such a validating moment, you know. I always knew I wanted to have kids, and I've been making music all my life.

What I treasure most at any moment is intimacy, surprise, a sense of mystery, wit, depth and love. A handful of cherished friends offer me this, and the occasional singer or film-maker or artist. But my most reliable sources of electricity are Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare, Melville and Emily Dickinson.

The music began, and it was one of those life-changing moments. I saw an artist, Janis Joplin. She was exhilarating. She was vibrating. And she was like no other artist that I had ever seen before... It struck me that hard. Maybe the word is epiphany, when you get that special sensation.