I think they’re different. They’re different modalities. When you start an essay, you know you’re going to write an essay. I mean, when I started my essay on “My Night at Maud’s,” it was almost as if I was going to write about myself, not about the film, and I love this mixing of the two.

It’s completely spatial. I follow Graham on that a lot. I really think that painting is about space and proportions and where things go; it’s what painting is. Form, if it isn’t the right color, it is not in the right place. And you know you can actually change the relationships a lot by changing the color a little. Yesterday, something happened in my studio. I realized that new things come to you all the time when you work in art. I had forgotten that if Graham wanted to make something slightly off-white, he used violet instead of greying it, and it’s really good. So, last night I remembered that, and the painting worked out.

If so, stop that. Stop thinking, and act.

No, I would never say that. I would never say that I do something just in order to put a fresh spin on it or do something different with it. I am drawn to certain plays because I think there’s something about them in the story that I want to tell, or that I think is relevant—something that strikes me. With Macbeth, I’m not doing this because I want to do a crazy interpretation or production.

Yeah, I think I would’ve talked to people more and learned more. Throughout my high school years I was very quiet, I didn’t have many friends. I distanced myself from a lot of people. I don’t know why, I don’t really think there was a particular reason, just my personality—I didn’t really try to make friends or talk to people outside of the two people that I talked to, you know what I mean? I would’ve definitely tried to make more friends and not worry what people would think of me if I talked to them. And learn a lot more, ask more questions, and absorb as much as I could. I definitely tried, but I don’t know if tried hard enough.

This is something I still have to learn and figure out because I'm not perfect at it yet — but I've learned that just even something as simple as breathing properly can be a really nice form of meditation. Also talking to people about it. I started going to therapy, which has been really helpful just to get it out. Of course for me as a songwriter, writing helps. So does taking things a day at a time and stopping to just breathe because I'm a person who really thinks so far in advance all the time.

But there's a big difference between being ungrateful and being a human being going through things. That took me a while to accept. Once you do, I think it's a lot more comforting to know that it's absolutely okay to feel whatever it is you're feeling, no matter how positive your life seems.

I started going to therapy, which has been really helpful just to get it out. Of course for me as a songwriter, writing helps.

The only concert I’ve ever really been to was (to see) a prepubescent Justin Bieber many years ago. I remember looking into the crowd. It felt like every girl wanted to be on stage because they wanted to just touch Justin Bieber…. All the girls wanted to be with him, I feel, but I just wanted to be him in that moment.

I had a bunch. When I was young, I really loved the Black-Eyed Peas and The Gorillas and bands like that. And then as I got older, I discovered Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill and older singers like Etta James. I gravitated towards a lot of young women who just played guitar and had great voices and wanted to emulate them in whatever I did, so they really inspired me.