“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.

The contrast was incredible.

Can anything good come of a backward way of thinking like judging someone based on skin color? No way.

Today we reject the notion of equality between a regime that belongs to the democratic world – even if it is conservative and disagreeable – and a totalitarian dictatorship, whether its colors are black, red, or green.

My real hair color is kind of a dark blonde. Now I just have mood hair.

Love overcomes hate. Love has no color. Love has no orientation. All is love.

I’ve got a great eye for color. I’m like a chick.

I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.

In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color.