Sometimes, what's helpful is to admit that we are discouraged and admit that we are at a loss.

I think people learn best and are more engaged when it's just normal relatable situations that illustrate the principles they're discussing.

I don't like to believe in canon.

One thing I'm super aware of in my music when I'm writing is: 'Am I overcomplicating this?' I'll write a song about some deep existential quandary and explore all these dumb thought waves, and then think 'Is it effective to say that? Or is it effective to say one simple thing that communicates the feeling better?'

I like Telecasters because they are so versatile.

There is something familial about punk. There is something positive. Even though some punk is destructive, nihilistic, explosive.

My parents wouldn't let me listen to 'American Idiot.' So it felt very rebellious to go over to my friend's house after school and listen to it in secrecy.

Ultimately, I feel like there is just a pervasive evidence of God. Though I know that is maybe a controversial thing to say.

There's no musician who just wakes up one day and decides, 'This is what I want to do.' It takes some development.

Music and musical instruments were proximal to my life from very early on - I took piano lessons for a brief time, but then my dad had a guitar and when he was not playing it, I would pick it up and mess with it. He jokes that I used to complain that it hurt my fingers.

My parents were always playing records: My mom was really into the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac, and my dad was more Billy Squire, Whitesnake, '80s hair metal. But I think there's that crucial point where you become an adolescent and you don't want to listen to your parents' music.

I feel like it's a necessary part of musical development to go through that phase where you think that your favorite style of music is the only style of music, and I thought that for a while.

I had a lot of fear about coming out as a kid.

I feel really privileged to have gracious and merciless people with a lot of perspective and patience in my life.

If 1,500 people are gonna see me and they each pay $20, I want to give them everything that I possibly can. They just made an exchange that allows me to live a dream of mine since I was a child. And that's not lost on me. So I want to expend every ounce of power and energy I have.

Some shows feel very reverent - when you're in a seated theater, no one really sings. I love it when people sing! I wish people would sing all the time. Because one of my favorite things when I get to do as a musician is step away from the microphone and listen to everyone sing together.

The thing about music is that it gives voice and names to anguish and also addresses how to comfort it.

When I am writing alone I try to just write for myself without thinking, like, this will go on a record.

Appointments' is largely just derived from pieces of dialogue with another person, and then also what's going on inside of my own mind, or a person's own mind. They're intended to be a little bit exaggerated and a satire of things that we're not sure are entirely true, or maybe biased.

The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.

I don't want a tan, but I do love blushes in colors that give you that whole sun-kissed thing.

I kind of imagine myself at eighty, a cat lady.

My eyebrows are a mess. They're skinny; they're dodgy.

In detective land, you have to deal with a lot of intense emotions, so you yourself have to remain mostly unemotional and detached. These are people, like law enforcement and surgeons, in professions that don't have the luxury of being able to be emotional or to break down. In my line of work, it's almost a requirement.

I think I can be beautiful with all the little stuff done, and I can be ugly. A lot of attractive actresses can't be ugly.

For me, a spiritual and existential crisis is the same thing in that your foundation gets rocked.

When I feel something, I feel it to the ninth power.

I love L.A. I fall more in love with it as I get older.

I recommend everyone wakes up in the morning to Bachman Turner Overdrive's 'Taking Care Or Business' - you'll feel better.

I'm actually very moral and nurturing, but I'm also adventurous. I am challenging.

My parents are just the best.

Not all detectives are the same - some play bad cop, some are awkward, some are funny.

If someone tells you over and over that everything's great, you immediately think, 'OK, what's the rest of the story?'

I collect clothes - they keep building and building. I buy them instead of having them washed.

Like everybody I have many different sides.

There' s a duality in myself, and it's also what I try and instill in my roles.

I thrive on adversity.

I'm all for natural solutions. I'm for eastern philosophies. Yoga is a good one.

My first boyfriend was a surfer. We bonded over loving the sun, Depeche Mode, and The Cure.

I get lonely - I'm not going to lie about that... I kind of signed up in my mind that I'm giving myself wholeheartedly, full-throttle to my creative life, and I don't want to be distracted.

I didn't like school at all. I never liked the seven different classes system. I liked having just one, like in elementary school - less disruption. I liked history. I failed math and science and gave those teachers a hard time.

The mainstream media is funded by pharmaceutical companies, so when you have the biggest movie star in the world at the time - Tom Cruise - coming out against anti-depressants and Ritalin... they still brutalize him.

I don't want to be famous as a movie star and have the whole world love me, I want to be a creative actress.

I always liken myself to the bearded lady. Because I'm an actress turned musician, a woman doing male-dominated rock & roll... I'm the oddity at the freak show, you know?

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I have no poker face.

It's not my nature to dominate and bully.

It always surprises me when people say, 'I don't regret one thing about my life. I wouldn't change anything because it's all led me to where I am today.' I would want to change certain things that have caused others pain.

I used to be really insular, really introverted. I couldn't articulate myself.

The praise for 'Cape Fear' will help me work more artfully - I can work with real artists, like Robert De Niro and the directors, and then go to artland, which is the best land to be in in this world.

The worst thing you can do to a kid is tell them that their dreams are invalid.