“I feel like making music because – and this has much to do with the way I was able to make this record – there’s more of myself in it.”

We all know guys who’ve had their hearts broken in real life; we just don’t usually see it in the movies.

I think making a movie or a record, the best things happen by accident – and those end up being the magic. Every time I’ve followed my gut it’s been better than when I’ve tried to do what I was supposed to do.

I’ve always been really picky about roles and make a point of reminding myself that it’s not about the money – because, obviously, there’s a lot of money to be made in this business if you’re willing to do anything.

I’ve never pursued a role. I always hear stories about actors going after parts and I’m, like, ‘How do they do that?’ It seems so weird. It seems like a total myth or something.

I appreciate a songwriter like Morrissey with so much restraint.

My biggest complaint with tights is that they do not accommodate skinny-ankled people like myself.

I did go through this period where girls would be mean and I had a lot of guy friends. But I’ve found as an adult the importance of having female and male friends.

I was doing about five movies a year for many years. I was just so tired. I walked around feeling like a Mack truck hit me.

It’s really fun to say no sometimes. I just don’t want to discount how fun it is to say no and exercise your right to say no, and – as a girl – it’s important to know how to say no… and that no means no!

That’s one of the most exciting things for me about listening to records: It’s a moment in time, and the less it’s messed with the more powerful it is. I wanted at least one song on the record to be just completely about the moment.

I think my knowledge of music theory is rooted in jazz theory, and a lot of the writers of standards – Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin.

I’ve always been a late bloomer with a lot of things, just in general, so I think this was something that needed to come to fruition in this particular way.

I don’t like to plan harmonies too much, because there’s something fun that happens when you just sing a pass, then sing another pass, and layer them on top of each other.

California is a great big nation of one They never knew what they wanted ’til it was already gone

It’s very much a piece of myself when I write a song. I don’t mean to say it’s very personal, like the lyrics mean something personal to me. When I write a song, that’s my taste in music – my taste in chord progressions and melodies.

I love indie movies. I think that independent cinema is where it’s at and where a lot of trends begin. It’s where new filmmakers are breaking through.

When you realise that ugly typography never effaces itself, you will be able to capture beauty as the wise men capture happiness by aiming at something else.

Putting a label [homosexual] on myself was a big step forward…once I said, ‘Yes, that’s me, that’s what I am,’ I was able to work with it.

If all we are allowed is hours, minutes, I want to be able to etch each of them on to my memory with exquisite clarity so that I can recall them at moments like this, when my very soul feels blackened.

Once you start rewriting, you’re not able to stop. With each draft the fundamental banality and worthlessness of the material becomes more evident even as its vitality and spontaneity are drained from it.

If you are able to explain suffering, a man once told him, you weren’t really there.

You never know what’s going to happen. That’s why I like acting. It’s precious to me to be able to live more than one life.

No doubt that the U.S. is a super-power capable of conquering a relatively small country, but is it able to control it?

They appear to have become so attached to their outrage that they are even more outraged that they won’t be able to be outraged anymore.