If you kiss on the first date and it's not right, then there will be no second date. Sometimes it's better to hold out and not kiss for a long time. I am a strong believer in kissing being very intimate, and the minute you kiss, the floodgates open for everything else.

You've got to love yourself first. You've got to be okay on your own before you can be okay with somebody else.

I have my own high standards for what I want in a partner and how I want to be treated. I bring a lot to the table. I'm not talking about material things but what I have to offer as a person - love and loyalty and all the things that make a good relationship.

You mirror what the world mirrors to you.

Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.

Women should never go without earrings. Passing on them is an opportunity missed.

I don't regret what I've been through. I've had ups and downs, super highs and some really low lows. I've been so blessed that I could never say, 'I wish this didn't happen.' It's part of who I am. There's nothing in my life that's so ugh.

You get what you give. What you put into things is what you get out of them.

I dunno... I feel out of step. Musically. Just out of step, not even behind or ahead. Just sort of like... I dunno, sometimes I feel like I'm still... just not... in sync. I don't know how to explain it. I just am.

When I was a kid. I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13. Crappy rock bands, avant-garde things where we'd, like, 'wanna go against the norm, man.'

On my record cover, you can barely see my face. I still think I look really geeky.

If you're going to write, then write a novel with a Haitian woman in it and try and describe her accurately. When you can do that, you can write about people.

I'm far from being a consummate artist. I mean, this is just my first album, and the work is very new. I'm just beginning, and I'm certainly not worthy of demigod status. There's absolutely no danger of me reaching that.

More than any other place, New York is where I felt I belonged. I prefer the Lower East Side to any place on the planet. I can be who I am there, and I couldn't do that anywhere I lived as a child. I never fit in when I lived in California, even though that's where my roots are.

I once took a ride to the beach in L.A., and all along the shore there were all these so-called jazz places. And I saw these college guys and session players playing this fusion Muzak stuff. It was just a lot of notes, and the more notes they played, the more it kept them from expressing anything. So I came back home and got out my Zeppelin albums.

I'm convinced part of the reason I got signed is because of who I am, and it makes me sad.

The music business is the most childish business in the world. Nobody knows what they're selling or why, but they sell it if it works.

Grace is a quality in people that I just enjoy. It's a very human quality.

I don't know any artists that are really emotionally well adjusted. In fact, I think we're all pretty much insane.

I'm sick of all these labels and these manufactured subdivisions of music that don't even exist. And even though I'm pierced myself, I'm sick of everyone equating body piercing with musical courage. If you ask me, it takes a lot more than that.

All these people that want to make me out as part of Generation X had better watch out, or they're going to get X'd out themselves.

There are times when what you do will be mysterious to everyone... times when you have to change directions before people are ready. Just because someone does something that critics don't like or understand doesn't mean you're failing as a musician. It probably means you're growing.

I'm not 'Grace.' That album is like a brick onto itself. It's like a coffin that I put certain feelings and observations in so that they can be capsulized forever. I wanted to put them there so I would be free to move on.

When I was 12, I decided to become a musician. 'Physical Graffiti' was the first album I ever owned.