Be true to yourself, and, um, don't worry about some large companies' quarterly profit index.

I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing.

I don't think women's prisons are environments for dance routines, and I don't think mass murder is humorous.

I don't want to live in a culture of despair. I'd like to live in a culture of hope.

I was shy. Bookish. The kind of 13-year-old girl who, instead of having a boyfriend, would have a crush on a dead, 19th-century author!

I wish I had appreciated my youth - I should have worn tighter clothing when I could have!

I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.

I'm going to be shaking my booty when I'm 55.

I'm on this search trying to figure out exactly who I am and what I have to say to people.

I've raised my daughter with no television.

It's funny, I remember doing the Johnny Carson show, and, uh, I couldn't afford my rent.

It's really wonderful to be able to be nobody, and then have a moment when I can be somebody, and then go right back to being nobody again.

Poetry comes alive to me through recitation.

The research phase was really fascinating - I'm not a closeted nerd, I'm an out-of-the-closet nerd.

I think of myself as a musician and not a celebrity. Celebrity status is something you have to deliberately pursue - I couldn't imagine myself seeking that.

I've found out how overwhelming the media is and the way it drills things into your head, it's almost like a mind control. If I could control prople's minds, I'd like to put something useful in.

Literature gives us a window into other people's experiences in other places, in other times, so I thought it would be really interesting to investigate how different people had written about motherhood, and childhood.

My mother was a single working mother; she started having children very young. There was a tension inside her about who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do and how she couldn't achieve the things she wanted to.