I'm so smart. I am good at doing math really quickly in my head.

It's nice to know there's a big world with many perspectives. I tend to get so stuck in my own small world easily, and going out into the world reminds me that I'm not the center of the world - in a good way.

I took a few piano lessons as a kid, but it didn't last; I just learned piano from doing it over and over on my own, because I didn't have many friends, and there was always a keyboard in the house.

Sometimes when I perform, and it's obvious the audience is just there to party, or if I feel a wall between me and the audience, I get existential about it.

On tour, I don't drink, because I don't think in any other job you are supposed to get to work and drink whisky.

I think your ego gets in the way of making something good because it kind of blinds you from the actual art.

When I record, it's this very precious and insular thing.

There's this myth that women are supposed to compete with each other or something, or we're supposed to hate each other, and that's totally not productive.

With solo shows, you have complete control over the set list. If you feel like you want to do something different or do a new song, you can just work it in. You can talk to the audience or not talk to the audience. There's nothing that's set.

Often I've had problems automatically bending to a lover's will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, 'This is what I love!'

Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.

I really like The Cars. They're just so over the top and super pop, but I don't feel guilty. I'm proud of all the music I listen to.

I have my privileges, but I do feel like at every turn there is such resistance. Things seem to take so much longer for me to do. I have to say things 10 times instead of once. I have to knock on 10 different doors instead of two. For everything. All the time. I feel like I'm not taken seriously.

I understand that, because there are so many musicians, you have to make artists into brands, but I sometimes feel like I have to be some kind of non-human icon in order for people to listen to my music.

I think my whole identity is formed around not knowing where I'm from. It might even be that I find comfort in that confusion.

In my first few years of being in New York, I had a major identity crisis because I'd never stayed in one place for so long.

I actually love the summer. When I went to Miami on tour, I was actually like, 'I love this place.'

What's important to me is that my songs can exist without any material anything. It's very reflective of my ideology.

I don't set out to write something. I more just write, and later on, I discover what it's about.

I have this thing about being acknowledged and accepted by institutions.

My father was obsessed with folk music from around the world, and I think the countless artists who performed them are my biggest influences.

I think my real influences are out of my control, which are the things that entered my brain when I was a kid growing up.

I think it's our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we're able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn's case, we as artists somehow made it 'cool' enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.

When I go onstage and am performing the way I want to... I finally feel like myself.