What belief do you hold that most people around you would reject or find surprising?

I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.

I don't know why that is. To me, they’re making much more... interesting records. They’re saying more things I’d prefer to hear, lyrically and song-wise, and that’s compelling.

I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that's a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you ...

I think one of the best things that art can do is to shine a light on dark places, and to hold something up and say: 'This hasn't gone unnoticed. We see this, and we're going to say something about it.'

My own answer to the contrarian question is that most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more. Without technological change, if China doubles its energy production over the next two decades, it will also double its air pollution. If every one of India's hundreds of millions of households were to live the way Americans already do — using only today's tools — the result would be environmentally catastrophic. Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.

I started saying in 1985 I don't think we should have a music talking about niggers and bitches and hoes. It had no impact. I've said it. I've repeated it. I still repeat it. To me, that's more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee.

We focus on people and on cultivating local leadership: Wendy Kopp

Well, I'd say that I'm actually optimistic about the future of our country. That's not a sentiment most people share today. Especially on the Right, it's increasingly common to feel pessimistic about America. You know, to be 'blackpilled', as they say online. And it's understandable – I too see all the chaos and destruction this Regime is inflicting on our country and the American people. But I really do believe that we can get the pendulum to swing back our way, that we can win this fight and rebuild America. That's why I'm running for office.

I have a lot of compassion for everybody, even fake Tegan, honestly. Life’s hard. The world’s hard. Navigating this is hard. We all have issues.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.

When I was 14 and starting my own business, or 16 and running a for profit ski club, or 19 and forgoing business opportunities or real-world experience to work with kids at a camp in Northern Ontario, not many people were congratulating me on following my passion.

Pix is probably the most successful payment infrastructure run by a government in history. I think Pix has been what has allowed a country like Brazil to leapfrog developed economies like the U.S. and in Europe, and has positioned Brazil today probably five years ahead of the U.S. I don't think anybody understands that, and probably in the U.S. they didn't really expect that.

I'm writing with a clear lesbian agenda in the novels. It's right there at the heart of the books.

I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony; but chaos, hostility and murder.

I am interested in an eternal truth, in how people found language to express the same things. We go through the same things: the movement of planets, eclipses, the rising and falling of suns, like cultures, and the growth of trees and spirit. I am curious how we translated these into culture, into storytelling.

I think when the creative person ends, he continues in the next existence. I'm a person who believes this life isn't the be-all and end-all of everything.

I think feedback is coaching. Sometimes it’s hard for people to hear feedback.

Coding is like writing, and we live in a time of the new industrial revolution.

I think stress ages us the most, and stressing about food is the worst. I eat a high-fat diet because it gives me the most energy and makes me think about food less. I can't be obsessing about food all day if I'm hungry because I only ate a salad. I also like feeling full. I will eat a donut if it makes me have a happy day. And for me, eating things that are considered 'bad' is part of what really gets me motivated to work out [laughs]. At this point in my life, I'll take what I can get.