Everyone has to kind of fend for themselves.

I tried to have more than one emotion on the record.

You can't just play the same thing, over and over again.

All I want to do is sing on other people's records.

Everyone has to kind of fend for themselves.

Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk-rock.

Everybody in my band is married, pretty much, and have lives at home, and I don't want them to be away from their families so long that they just start to feel psychotic. You have to go home and stand around in your bathrobe doing your dishes to feel like a normal person sometimes.

I didn't want to be the girl who posed in 'Playboy' and then - by the way - made some music.

I don't feel nervous or fearful when I'm on stage.

I don't know anybody who doesn't hate being called alt.country. It just sounds like a website. I don't mind being called Americana, I don't mind being called country noir, or independent country is fine, but the words alt.country make me insane.

I grew up with lots of animals and I related more to them than I did to people. I feel a lot of empathy for them.

I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.

I have this typical Ukrainian face. Even people who know my music don't recognize me most of the time, thank God.

I just really dig feeling subservient to nature. It brings me a peace and calm. Kind of like a Faustian thing, I think.

I just want to make stories. They don't have to have a moral or a reason. There might be some mild cautionary notes, but they're not moral. They don't impart any Judeo-Christian ethic of any kind.

I know that I can sing really loud. It's like having that really big Evinrude engine on the back of your fishing boat. But I've been trying to be more dynamic with my voice, and not just singing on 10 all of the time out of terror.

I really wanted to find a piano for the farm house. There were so many free pianos on Craigslist, I thought, 'Let's get as many free pianos as we can and stick them all in the barn.' I got eight in a short period of time, only six of which were tunable, but it's still quite funny.

I should have been an abortion. The only reason I wasn't was that my father was a Christian.

I think I've kind of been mistaken for somebody who's trying to be a spokesperson for animal rights, and the fact is I'm not qualified to be a spokesperson. I am passionate about it, but I'm not trying to make other people do what I do.

I think my songwriting might be a little more on the darker side maybe.

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

I want to get away from the social vampires in Tucson. The people who have no lives of their own and meet me and know who I am and feel entitled to say negative things. I have good friends here, especially in the bands. But a lot of it is just like high school.

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

If I could ever be on a Missy Elliott record, I could then die. Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige - I love hearing them interviewed, I love the way they talk about their art. They're very self-assured, they're funny, they're inviting. I love it.

The Bible tries to make humans not animals the whole time. I think it's a bit of a mistake.

There's just kind of a sweetness about Canadians. Americans are a little more pushy, I mean, in a way that I enjoy - they're basically pushy because of their enthusiasm - we're a lot clumsier than other people.

Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk rock.

Other people, including me, have written books with main characters who were old and rich. Or old and brilliant. Old sages, old wizards, old rich people.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

We can take action with a player without the league taking any action. But all that we can do is, we can deactivate him. But we're limited under the collective bargaining agreement to four games.

I spent money, I slept with women around the league, but I always kept my mind on the game.

It's always tense when you move a character from a book to the screen. Always tense.

There are a lot of young, well-educated, artistic people out there that like to be entertained.

I can get along great with the Hispanics. In fact, I sure would like to meet them, even the politicians, maybe in the back room or whatever, have a couple of beers and try to explain. But they need to understand that I enforce the laws. I want to listen to them and hear their problems. I want them to tell me what their problems are.

We cannot sit still and see the dear Burmans, flesh and blood like ourselves and, like ourselves, possessed of immortal souls that will shine forever in heaven or burn forever in hell - we cannot see them go down to perdition without doing our very utmost to save them. And thanks be to God, our labors are not in vain.

We have to have the faithful in government.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

Real women fight for something, other than their own emotions.

The idea of working with David Fincher or Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson or Scorsese or Spielberg or any of the guys I really idolize is a dream for me.

I believe in the greatness of our people.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Yes, you make mistakes in the old cases where you really think you know who the suspect is, and you probably do, and you make the mistake of relying on people.

When I had the idea for 'Shopaholic', it was as though a light switched on. I realised I actually wanted to write comedy. No apologies, no trying to be serious, just full-on entertainment. The minute I went with that and threw myself into it, it felt just like writing my first book again - it was really liberating.

I really want to keep at it until I find out what I'm capable of.

If you start a conversation with the assumption that you are right or that you must win, obviously it is difficult to talk.

At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light.

It's nice to be a woman, and it's nice to be an Asian. But what's more important is what I can bring back to my district.

Having gone through so many of the personal things I've gone through, its about creating an (online) space for girls to be heard. I don't profess to have all the answers. But Ask Elizabeth is a space where girls are not alone.

Just once, I would like to wake up, turn on the news, and hear... 'Monday has been canceled, go back to sleep.'