The only reason I would write a break-up song is because my own problem of allowing myself to relate to people.

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.

The essence of the Marine Corps experience, I decided, was pain.

Britishness is just a way of putting things together and a certain don't care attitude about clothes. You don't care, you just do it and it looks great.

Our survival depends on the healing power of love, intimacy and relationships. As individuals. As communities. As a country. As a culture. Perhaps even as a species.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

Never trust a thought that didn't come by walking.

I hope to work with kids any way possible.

I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like.

People come out to see you perform and you've got to give them the best you have within you.

If you could really guarantee that the money would be spent on something more worthwhile, I'd say, absolutely, scrap the space program, but it never works that way.

One of the things that I've been doing over the past few years is reevaluating my own powers of political analysis.