I don't feel like I make sense in the world. I don't feel like I look right. I don't feel like I act right or do right. It's very frustrating to me that I just walk around with this all the time.

It took me a long time to not think of the universe as a judgmental debit-credit system. I haven't completely shaken it, but I no longer think that I am overdrawn with God. Grace is not something you earn; its always there. I find this idea a lot more fun.

Taking care of myself is not instinctual for me. It feels very weird.

I get in my own way a lot. I feel a lot more confident than I... am.

I think people have a hard time dealing with a bunch of things at once. They can't have something be disturbing and funny at the same time. They can't have that kind of combination. Which is weird to me because I feel complicated about most things.

I play a lot of role-playing games on the computer. And I always have.

I like when I tweet about Tony Hawk. A lot of times, people think it's true; like, I've tweeted about having lunch with him a lot, and people are like, 'Oh, how was he?' or, like, 'Do you have a pic?' I don't know how to explain it. He's right at the level where people could almost believe it, but it's also a really weird pairing.

I started writing songs later in life because I just couldn't commit to it before.

It used to be enough for me to get on stage and sing. I kind of crave the performance part now. I write knowing it's going to happen, which I didn't do before.

I'm pretty sure I would have managed to over-share no matter what time period I was born in. It's a family thing, too.

I think if you know one direction, then you can feel the other one. I don't think you can be truly, insanely joyous if you haven't ever felt the flip side of it.

There was one time I flagged every 'Brokeback Mountain' review on Netflix that was negative. I was, like, 'not helpful,' and I spent, like, an hour doing it, and I wrote a really serious review about it. It's hard for me not to get really sensitive. I don't brush things off like that very easily.

Music helped me, growing up: it very much felt like a companion and made me less lonely.

For a while, I thought I would maybe be a writer. But with music, I was such a nerd; I was really obsessive about it. The problem was I couldn't really sing. I think one day I sang from a different part of my body, from my gut for the first time, and I was like, 'Oh! That's how you're supposed to do it.'

My favorite movie is 'Dogfight' with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. The ending is kind of bittersweet but so real and moving and complicated.

I've had people send messages that said, 'I'm sorry how I treated you in high school.' It was just through kindness. I still think of the world the same way I did growing up. When I got hurt, I decided that this is how people are. But the world is changing, and even those people have changed. And I have. I need to let go, too.

I was really scared of the devil growing up: I was convinced I was going to be possessed.

I don't ever necessarily feel masculine or feminine. I just feel... I don't know. Like, when I'm wearing women's clothes, it's not like I'm dressing like a lady, a woman; it's just like I'm doing whatever I want.

I was scared of the devil starting around age nine. Before that, I was gathering every family member in the living room, slipping a shirt over my robe so the bottom hung like a skirt and performing Gloria Estefan songs with feverish intensity.

Blushes are fun. I like to do circles - like a Caravaggio painting almost, or Victorian looking.

I sort of trust myself as a musician to experiment more and to know when things are more effective when they're spare and when a song can hold up to a lot of different instrumentations. So I'm more willing to go for it.

There's a book called 'You're Not a Stranger Here' by Adam Haslett - short stories, a lot of them are about mental illness and gay people - that classic combination. But they're really well-written, really powerful. It's pretty good.

I saw 'Predators.' That was pretty good, actually.

iTunes is my favorite record store.

I think people are surprised that I'm not - I think people come up to talk to me, and they think I'm going to be really morose. And I am, but I do that by myself - no one wants to see that. It's not really a phoniness; I just kind of keep it to myself. So I think people are surprised when they come up to talk to me and I hug them.

I've had people tell me that I should just be sad and not joke around on Twitter, but they don't understand that joking and being deeply sad are very close to each other. I'll have a horrible memory that I find hysterical one day, and the next day I'll cry about it.

One of the things that 'Too Bright' refers to is how there's a lot of times where I see things that I could change that could make me more contented, but I usually just don't make those changes because they seem new and scary. I just stay where I'm at, even if I'm miserable, because I'm familiar with it.

I don't know if I could write a pop song without at least a little touch of bite in it, and it's usually not a bite that most people would want to sing.

I like to have fun! And everything that's good for you is not fun, and that bores me.

I am fierce, yes, but I'm serious about music.

I have a strange, not very traditional voice - I'm not Adele.

If I'm not writing, I can download a newer album everybody's making a fuss about. But when I'm writing, I keep myself in my own zone - I worry about listening to new music that'll inform me too much. I'm the kind of person who goes to another country and starts speaking in an accent after three days.

I really never want to try to be cool.

I like Feist's music because it's really smart, but it's really free and soulful at the same time. Sometimes you only get one or the other.

I don't think I wrote my first song until I was 25. And then everything I wrote ended up becoming my first album. I put my music online, and from that, things just happened.

I do not work out regularly, but I do dance so much and jump around so much on stage, and I do it every day, so I feel like that's my exercise.

For me, piano is just where I started; I know where to go with it.

My mom is always asking why can't I make something nice? Because I'll make paintings, say, and they're just really bloody and angsty. So I wrote 'Dark Parts' because I wanted to write something nice for her.

I wanna be bad sometimes - I wanna rip everything apart, -but it comes on less and less. Doing all this music stuff is very good for it.

I originally thought I'd grow up to be a woman. I didn't question that when I was little.

Sometimes I'm not into being a human.

The first record I bought was the 'Edward Scissorhands' soundtrack. I remember being really obsessed with the movie, and all the campiness sort of went over my head because I was so little - it's the same with 'Hairspray.' But I would listen to that soundtrack a lot.

When I first started making music, I wrote the lyrics first, but now, because the music has got kind of wilder, I've flipped it.

Good catsuits should have multiple zippers; they'll have a top and a bottom one.

I'm personally not a very contact-y person; I just let my phone die and don't turn it on for a couple of days.

I went off at a person who threw a plastic thing at one of my shows once. After I shamed them, I realised it was a little lipstick and felt bad for days.

I got very serious about micro-piglets and what it would be like to own them.

He was my biggest crush when I was 12, and it's never really stopped. I was on BenAffleck.com a lot growing up. I don't know why.

I like Costco. They got me to be an executive member, so I'm, like, a business class member. Somehow, I'm going to end up saving money or something. The thing is, I don't moderate very well, so I buy things that are supposed to be for a family or last for a week, but they never do.

I feel like my shows have always been a place where people can wear and be and seem however they want, and it's a heartening event.