“Love for me is my North Star. It’s the highest form of grace. And I love that there’s different levels and different ways of showing it, and different representations of it. Whether it’s love shown to a stranger, love to a sibling, your child, your parents, your partner.”

Folk is bare bones music.

The Blind Boys are truly the deepest well of American musical heritage you can discover.

I don’t know how to not become every person I walk by.

It will make a weak man mighty. it will make a mighty man fall. It will fill your heart and hands or leave you with nothing at all. It’s the eyes for the blind and legs for the lame. It is the love for hate and pride for shame. That’s the power of the gospel.

I’m really looking forward to, not more of the same, but a continual growth.

Forever always seems to be around when it begins, but forever never seems to be around when it ends

Now I love to feel that warm southern rain, Just to hear it fall is the sweetest sounding thing. And to see it fall on your simple country dress It’s like heaven to me I must confess.

Sometimes I feel I know strangers Better than I know my friends Why must a beginning Be the means to an end? The stones from my enemies These wounds will mend But I cannot survive The roses from my friends.

My head works in music, so there’s always music there.

You can’t just say ‘I love you,’ you have to live ‘I love you.’

I refuse to make uninspired music.

As a songwriter, I don’t rush. I may sit on lyrics for two years before the music hits.

We’re always moving forward in different places physically and psychologically.

I just want to keep doing what I feel.

The world awakens on the run And will soon be earning With hopes of better days to come It’s a morning yearning.

I grew up listening to spiritual music, Blind Willie Johnson and folk.

I’m trying to learn how to listen to people and how not to think that this is all I am. It’s not going to change the fact that at home I’m going to put away the clean dishes, and I’m going to have to be nice to my siblings. It encourages me, but it doesn’t define me.

Siblings may be ambivalent about their relationships in life, but in death the power of their bond strangles the surviving heart.

I was always observing my siblings and hearing stories about their lives that turned out to be helpful as an actress.

My first child is going to be the oldest sibling to the next kid, and that may change with each and every year. I’m looking forward to how one baby influences the other, and to my family as a whole, to every single chapter.

I was the oldest of six, and three of my siblings were adopted.

I would ask my parents something, but then go to my siblings. We were encouraged to bounce ideas off everyone.

I’ve always been an actress, entertaining my family was the start. I’m a goof ball among many of my cousins and siblings.

The sibling relationship contains enough emotional dynamite to set off rounds of daily explosions.