“I’m like cheddar: Yes, other cheeses are more ooh la la, but I’m strong, mature, and oh so delicious.”

I mean, if I was living to please people, I’d have never been in a band at all. I wouldn’t have anything awesome around. I’d just be bored.

I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience.

Products are a must – full stop. I’m sorry to say it, but that bob won’t look so sleek on its own – you need a little help. It doesn’t have to be the high-end stuff that they sell in the salon. Products you find in the supermarket are just as good, and sometimes better.

I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn’t understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.

I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter – I just didn’t identify as a songwriter at all.

I was given baby doll toys myself, and they proved a stark reminder that my life was expected to revolve around childbearing – just as my mom’s had before me, and her mom’s had before her.

True love is about being able to accept raw emotions, no matter how difficult.

This is how I feel about everything that’s out of your control: once you make a record, it’s not yours anymore. There’s nothing you can do. It’s the way I feel about political movements – both of those things grow on their own.

I am tired of spending a little bit of money in a lot of pieces because they keep on falling apart.

My dad liked to boil a squirrel head and suck the brains out the nose. Smaller than a chicken, bigger than a rat.

I have no control over what people think of me but I have 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You’re constantly learning how to be confident, aren’t you?

When you get a certain amount of media attention, I think people are like, “Where’s your other album?”

I’ve belched a lot more since I had gall bladder surgery. I don’t know why.

I have a very good relationship with myself. My favourite quote is, “What you think about me is none of my business.”

We weren’t idiots, but I didn’t have that access to academic feminism. I had to realize, on my own, that feminism is not just about how far ahead you can get in a job and it isn’t about not wearing makeup. It isn’t about not watching your waistline. I had to recreate the world entirely.

A few years back, when my style was “punk grandma”, I picked up an amazing pair of sandals – orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I’ve given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more “1980s substitute teacher gone wild.”

Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.

All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the knowledge of nature is interesting to all men.

Do girls really mature faster than boys or are you looking for a way to sexualize young girls without feeling guilty about it?

I’m older, I’m matured… I’m looking forward to the years to come. Good years.

I’m happier in the way a guy gets happier when he starts to mature. It doesn’t make things easier, but I’m so much better at handling them.

I think over the years, being a mother, I’ve matured in so many ways.

We’ve matured musically, as well as in the way we think. We’ve also developed a higher sense of responsibility. This has refined us and these developments are really being reflected in our music and our dance.

In 2009, I didn’t like that Yamaha signed such a young and competitive teammate [Jorge Lorenzo]. But now everything is different. We are more mature. Everyone knows his role and position. Things are clear.