“It would actually feel forced or unnatural to try to do a different singing style or to try to change my sound completely.”

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 was one of those girls people called ‘intense.’

I don’t think I’m alone in this: I’m obsessed with trying to not only be happy but maintain happiness, but my definition of happiness is skewed more towards ecstasy rather than contentment.

I feel like I’ve always wanted to live in one place and stay in one place, but I always end up choosing things that make me travel.

When you are a minority, it’s your job to bend, and when you love someone, you really want to make it work.

I was a film major because, for some reason, I thought that that was a creative job that had more job opportunities. I don’t know what logic I was following, but that was my impression at the time.

I don’t want to be elitist.

I think it’s very dangerous as an artist to be comfortable.

Maybe this is a made-up belief to preserve myself, but I do believe that everyone has a purpose, and my purpose is to put out music that means something.

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

What I have a problem with is when it becomes another form of tokenization, of shrinking me into a symbol instead of a multilayered, female Asian artist.

I don’t want to be a musician’s musician. I want to be an everyone’s musician.

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.

Being an outsider at all times is both unhealthy and useful, because you become much more objective about things.

I’ve been asked whether I have a hobby, and have felt strangely offended that anyone would assume I have the time.

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