“As a woman of color, I always have to be at 150 percent and better than everybody in the room to be considered competent.”

I discovered I was an Asian American when I arrived in the U.S. I didn’t identify as that before I came here.

I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar,’ and she was like, ‘Isn’t this song great?’ And everyone was like, ‘Who’s Taylor Swift?’ And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.

I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that’s important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.

I tend to not want to do that anymore. It’s not even that I don’t like it anymore: it’s that I keep trying to find ways for people to dislike me.

I’m punk, but I love gold.

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

I’m not an innovator.

I wanted to take up guitar because playing piano is a little harder. Carrying a keyboard around is harder, and finding a real piano is much harder, and I wanted to play live more, so I figured a guitar would be easier to carry around.

I don’t really listen to pop-country, but I like really, really old country that’s closer to folk. Like Johnny Cash, who is considered country.

I really just care about making music and how I can make it next.

On one hand, I think it’s very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it’s not talked about, then we won’t progress.

You always want what you can’t have, and that all-American thing, from the day I was born,

I can’t read in a car, because I’ll get sick. It’s almost instant.

Oftentimes, the most important decisions I make are the ones I don’t put much thought into.

If I ever found a place where I belonged, that in itself would be an identity crisis to me.

I lived abroad most of my life in insular international communities.

People of color, particularly African Americans, feel the stigma more keenly. In a race-conscious society, some don’t want to be perceived as having yet another deficit.

With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.

Blueness doth express trueness.

But the color of a Negro’s skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target

Life is a metaphysical autumn, with time it changes the color of life and fall, but always has an aura of change and depth.

My color is my joy and not my burden.

And then, of course, most potters, they go in for earth tones and subdued things, and I like color.

Alcohol was the background color in the fabric of Reggie’s life.