I don't find much influence in opera. It was such a different part of me.

I started performing opera when I was 10 years old. I didn't perform as Zola Jesus until I was probably 18.

I don't know why people think I'm a Goth - that's a misconception.

You are born and then you die, but in between you can do anything you want. It's society that creates rules for us, but you can break out of that.

The most important thing for us to do as beings is to be aware of our position in the world on a micro and macro level.

I feel like humans are a disease. It's a hard thing to communicate in a pop song. I mean, who wants to hear that?

My music started as a way to break through weaknesses - like anxiety, which was completely taking over my whole life, where I could barely function.

No matter what you do, if there's something you're afraid of, you need to break through it.

I like to remind myself that everything is meaningless.

And my music is always such a release of what I feel inside, an impulse.

I know for sure that nothing matters.

Crying defies scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion.

God’s plan for your life is far beyond the imagination of men.

In New Orleans, you can pitch a rock and hit a great trumpeter.

Never follow anyone else's path, unless you're in the woods and you're lost.

As a television actor, there's a power you're given to use your image to do something valuable. As a parent, these messages are particularly important to me.

You ain't average! But you know what? You're playing small because it's easier to be average.

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.

As we grow older we should become not less radical but more so.

It will take a decade or two, but fundamentalism is going to burn itself.

We cannot say this or that trouble shall not befall, yet we may, by help of the Spirit, say, nothing that doth befall shall make me do that which is unworthy of a Christian.