I've always been a producer - that's how I see myself first. The DJing came second as a way for me to be able to perform.
When I first started writing songs, I never intended on singing. I didn't really consider myself a singer at all. I was just kind of recording the demo vocals as a holding place until someone else came and sang.
My readers often tell me that what they admire about my books is my ability to write from so many points of view. My challenge to myself is whether I'll ever be able to write a novel just from one point of view. It seems impossible.
For a couple of years, being professional, I kind of questioned myself. Should I wear my false lashes or take the time I want to take so I can feel good when I go out on the field? Because nobody else was really doing that. And I thought, No: I'm not going to change what I believe I should look like to fit anybody else's standards.
I try to make myself walk around a bit, but I probably think about it more than I actually do it. Years ago, I did think about joining a gym.
I mostly work out so I can eat religiously. I'm such a foodie. The only way I can make myself feel better about what I eat is to work out.
I consider myself black.
I can always see something of myself in the characters I play.
I go about in the world - free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to think of myself.
I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.
Growing up, I loved to play. Writing was a natural outtake of play. I realize now, having kids, that maybe that's unusual. Living out in the middle of nowhere, I entertained myself by writing.
I've always been one of those people that, if I am angry, I just hold it in. And I always kind of, like, wrote it in a song and put it aside for myself because it helps me get it out. It's almost like exercising; it's almost like that for me.
I never set out to become 'famous.' I mean, when you're 14 you think 'I'm gonna become a writer and people will want my autograph and that'll be cool,' but you grow up and you learn that's just not how the world works. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never be published and if I did it probably wouldn't be a big deal.
I'm going to hang out with people, and I'm going to explore myself, and I'm okay with that.
I've stopped war reporting. I realized that I'd answered all of my questions about war and about myself.
Some days, I feel like I should win Best Mom of the Day award, and some days, I find myself doing strange things that don't have any real purpose, in faraway corners in my house, and I realize I am literally and deliberately hiding from my children.
Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.
I always used to say to myself, I'm going to die of lung cancer. That's the choice I'm making.
I'm one of those people who can't watch themselves do anything. I could never watch myself wrestle. I've probably watched a handful of my matches. I never could watch myself. Even when I played college basketball, I hated film days... 'Oh God, I'm gonna watch myself screw up.' I'm just one of those people who can't watch their work.
Millions of us, myself included, go back generations in this country, with ancestors who put in the painstaking work to become citizens. So we don't like the notion that anyone might get a free pass to American citizenship.
I want to 'normalise' myself. I would love to have a family.
I transcend earthly bounds. I never cease to amaze myself because I haven't yet found my limits. I am quite ready to accept the limits of what I can do, but every time I feel that way - boom! - God touches me and I do something that's even more stupendous than whatever I've done up to then.
I never modeled myself after anyone. The person who had most influence on me was my mother, but it was really for her strength and courage more than her style, even though she had a lot of style. In a weird way, looking at pictures of me when I was 17 or 18, I was dressing the same way. I haven't changed very much.
I like recording by myself wherever I can, just because then I feel like I have ultimate freedom, and I can just control whatever I want to put down. There's something about going into your own little world.
Having started in theatre, for a long time I wanted to be a classical actress. But I've always loved making people laugh - at school, I was quite mischievous, and bit by bit, I found myself working more and more in comedy.
I could more label myself as even a spokeswoman for happiness!
Why do I write? To investigate the mystery of existence. To tolerate myself. To get closer to everything that is outside of me.
I would say I see myself as a psychiatrist in remission.
I learned that the songs that mean the most to me are the songs that I write by myself. While there were people I wrote really well with, particularly Gary Nicholson and Delbert McClinton, and I really enjoyed the experience, I came away from it feeling like I need to write by myself.
I have a notebook of concepts. There are titles everywhere if you are looking for them. I pull from them. There is a secret list that I keep for myself about what I want to sing about, and those are the ones I know I am not going to give up for someone else.
People ask me about my limp. I say, 'You know, I don't know how bad it is, because I don't watch - I don't watch myself.' I don't look at it. I don't.
I lift weights and do as much cardio as I can make myself. I'm not a big cardio fan, and I hate doing legs.
I don't want to compare myself to somebody like Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but I feel like, for some writers, going to a certain city, a certain place, is what kickstarts your imaginative process.
You can't say I look like this person or sound like this person exactly because I made it my own. I'm pretty, pretty influenced by myself right now.
I'm quite gregarious. But when it comes to relationships, I mean, I'm no good at it. I suck at it. And people say I'm way too hard on myself, but I always feel like somebody else is going to say it if I don't. Why not just beat them to the punch so it doesn't hurt so much?
I laughed at Willie Nelson, wondering why he spends all his life on that tour bus. And I look at myself, and I'm sitting in airplanes half the time.
