When you're growing up, I think there's this idea that the coolest people are the ones who are really rude and feverish. But I've come to realize that isn't cool.

Most of my favorite artists are strong females.

Females should stand by each other, especially in an industry which seems to try so hard to pin us up against each other and make us fight. It's not about that for me. I refuse to be sucked into a twisted world of insecurity and lose who I am.

My philosophy is to treat people how you want to be treated.

The cool thing about being a songwriter, or a writer, I guess, in general, you can take on a lot of different things, experience a lot of different things, just by writing about them.

If you don't have imagination, you stop being human; animals don't have imagination; Alzheimer's is the death of imagination.

To be creative means to connect. It's to abolish the gap between the body, the mind and the soul, between science and art, between fiction and nonfiction.

We go to the theater to be entertained, but if what is left after you watch the movie is a sort of eye-opening perspective on some social issues, then it can be a really powerful piece of art.