You can't take life for granted.

This is the man my mother lived for. My career means something now because I've worked with Robert Redford.

There's no way in the world that just because women turn the number 40, they're anything less than amazing. That's crazy. If anything, you're even more amazing!

But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound.

I love a good lyricist - always have. The thing that inspired me most was the different performers, like Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna, even Janet Jackson.

The bottom line is that musicians love to make music and always will.

I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy in my life. I am kind of like that at home. Do I have the full hair and makeup? No. But I might have the nice dress on.

By nature I am not tough, believe it or not.

I am a lover. And with my kids I am even softer. I realize with my son, I have to sometimes be tough, especially now when he's pushing boundaries. With my daughter, I can get a little stern with her and she pretty much will listen.

I do know a lot about Scientology. And I know about the practices. I know all about what the technology is and all that kind of stuff. It's very helpful.

I just think that the whole diva thing is a misrepresentation of who I am.

A romantic comedy has to be funny and make you think about life; but the obstacle that has to be overcome is key.

I think if you're in a committed relationship, unless you have some sort of an understanding, monogamy is something that should exist.

I've learned something about kids - they don't do what you say; they do what you do.

Being an artist doesn't start because you're 21, and it doesn't end because you're 51. You are who you are until the day you die.

I would never speak about specifics in my own relationships because I think it's tacky.

I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy. At home, do I have the full hair and makeup? No. But I might have the nice dress on.

I think a lot about teaching my kids to work hard.

Early on, my family really made me love who I was and what I looked like.

Sometimes things feel hopeless. Not always within my own life - but looking outward, it seems like rough times lie ahead of us. The world seems to be kind of caving in on itself in a lot of ways. But I try to look on the bright side.

I never envisioned myself as a solo artist; I was always part of a band.

I'm obsessed with old rotary phones.

Insomnia is a very prevalent issue. It's a women's health issue, and I chose to talk about it because so many people have experienced it to varying degrees. For me, I'm doing great now, but it took a lot of work to figure out how to get back to sleep. I had to change some of my habits. I developed some pretty bad sleep ritual habits.

You can find me at three in the morning in my living room with a glass of wine and really bad '90s trip hop beats blaring from my headphones.

It would be nice to create something that's healing rather than slightly creepy and darkly judgmental!

I'm not trying to repeat myself or cater myself to one specific group of people.

I am a child of digital generation. I have done most of the records with Rilo Kiley on computers, on Pro Tools or other digital programs.

I am in a constant cycle of selling my clothes at Wasteland and buying from Goodwill. Once or twice a year, I go through my closet and donate everything to Goodwill. It feels like I am recycling my fashion.

I think you kind of lose the human aspect when you make things too perfect.

I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it; it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12.

My true social media passion is making creepy short movies on Instagram.

I'm a late bloomer. It's taken me a long time to find my voice, and I think all the records I've made over the years, I was finding my voice, and that's part of the process.

I had a huge Lisa Frank sticker collection. I traded them.

When I sit down to write a song, there is no filter. I'm not trying to write for anyone or anything specifically. It's just trying to capture a little piece of your soul - even if it's a really ugly part.

My parents divorced when I was 3 years old. They had a lounge act in Las Vegas, where I was born. The band broke up and the marriage dissolved, and my mother, my sister and I moved to Southern California. And I didn't see my dad a lot growing up; he was on the road a lot. I'd see him every couple years.

I don't write songs, play music and tour, really, for anyone else but myself. It's something that I have to do to stay alive.

When you're in your mid-thirties, the cult of people who have children around you all want you in their cult, and they constantly ask you, 'So when are you going to have a baby?'

When I first started touring, we had a crappy van, and we would all share rooms. So for many years as a grown adult woman, I would share a bed with a bandmate, whether it would be Jimmy Tamborello from the Postal Service or Pierre De Reeder from Rilo Kiley, just a pillow barrier between us sleeping on the same bed.

It's pretty amazing to write under any circumstances when someone gives you an assignment to write a song, even if it doesn't get accepted. I've written songs a couple of times, some for Disney, that haven't actually ended up in their films, but then you're left with a song forever.

My mother's records were formative for me, but when I became a teenager, I wanted to find songs that she wasn't hip to. She was so hip, though, that I had to go outside rock n' roll - so for about 10 years, I only listened to hip-hop, house and techno.

I think art doesn't have to be created in a period of misery, but it certainly helps.

I think a lot of musicians play for the playback. I mean, that's the joy of recording - you want to hear what you've done and what you've contributed - but never listening to that playback kind of removes the intellectual part of making music, and it removes the tendency to be revisionist.

I think it's always an adjustment for me, but I do feel like, ultimately, I can kind of write anywhere. It just takes a second to get back in to the groove.

When I'm sick of myself, and when I don't know what to say as a solo artist, I can write a song for a movie. When I don't know where to turn musically, being in a band - Rilo Kiley or Jenny & Johnny - the collaborative nature is really exciting.

I'm typically not a heels person.

I think Chris Martin is younger than I am, but when I met him, I felt like I was talking to my father. It's so strange, that feeling when someone is that famous - you assume that they are either older or better.

I didn't know anything about music when I started a band. I barely knew how to play a guitar. I didn't know how to produce records. I learned how to play bass guitar and keyboards in Rilo Kiley. I picked up a lot from my collaborators.

I have that working-class show-business blood coursing through my veins.

I think I have a hard time expressing myself in my relationships. I use songs to tell people how I'm feeling. If I can't say 'I love you,' I'll write a song about it and hope that the person figures it out.

After Rilo Kiley broke up and a few really intense personal things happened, I completely melted down. It nearly destroyed me. I had such severe insomnia that, at one point, I didn't sleep for five straight nights.