For me, the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept... Whenever people bring up feminism, I’m like, god. I’m just not really that interested.

I'm not really interested in a ton of female musicians but there is something about Britney that compelled me - the way she sings and just the way she looks.

I was impressed with what someone like Karl Lagerfeld built and did and the house that he made, but there was never really a female figure I wanted to emulate.

I hear the birds on the summer breeze, I drive fast I am alone in the night Been trying hard not to get into trouble, but I I've got a war in my mind So, I just ride

That love doesn’t come easily and that relationships are supposed to be a struggle. Everything else is so hard; hopefully love is the one thing that is actually fun.

I have taken taking my music to labels for years, and everyone just thought it was creepy. They thought the images with the music were weird and verging on psychotic.

New York's architecture alone is enough to inspire a whole album. In fact, that's what happened at first - my early stuff was mostly just interpretations of landscapes.

My understanding of God has come from my own personal experiences. Because I was in trouble so many times in New York that if you were me, you would believe in God too.

When you're an introvert like me and you've been lonely for a while, and then you find someone who understands you, you become really attached to them. It's a real release.

I think America is amazing for its landscape and its history. California is beautiful, New York is beautiful, but when you're a gypsy at heart, it probably suits you to be traveling.

A lot of the reason my look is the way it is, is because it's really easy to put on a sundress every night if I have to perform - or just wear jeans every day and a flannel or something.

When you have absolutely no idea what's going to happen to you or what your career's going to end up like and you're just really open to anything, then you don't really have anything to loose.

[About Paz De La Huerta....] And there is this girl in the audience and she's gorgeous I can only kind of see her silhouette and she's getting like her t*ts out and I'm like: God, that's unusual.

A lot of what's been written about me is not true: of my family history or my choices or my interests. Actually, I've never read anything written about me that was true. It's been completely crazy.

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean.

I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba - Lana Del Rey reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I've had and also the people I've had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we're even alive at all.

Synchronicites . It's been said that coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous. Synchronicities are a sign of divinity. You breathe in deeply and say: 'I don't want anything. I'm going to let things happen'

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.

If you consider the definition of authenticity, it's saying something and actually doing it. I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn't think I'd have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn't know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

I made that first record in 2008, alongside the EP, but my label at the time waited three years to release it. They thought maybe someone bigger would buy it, but they didn't, so in the end they just released it themselves.

My mum and my dad they both like to sing they have really nice voices and my sister and my brother actually they are good singers too. I've been really blessed actually more than most to have a really good people around me.

When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal.

It's not like I think my art is inspirations from icons strung together. They're just sort of people who others talk about. I am definitely interested in the masters of different genres, they're talented and popular for a reason.

Sometimes, love feels like a life or death situation. Losing true love is pretty much as bad as it gets, other than actually dying or losing good health. Most people know that. Most people can relate. It's like the end of the world.

I don't believe in the school of hard knocks, although I've had them. All that stuff about whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger is so not true. Do you know what makes you stronger? When people treat you and your art with dignity.

Everything I do, I do it for somebody I've never met before, something in the great beyond. That's my primary relationship, really, is with something divine. I feel a connection as real with that as I've ever had with anybody on this earth.

I wanted to be part of a high-class scene of musicians. It was half-inspired because I didn't have many friends, and I was hoping that I would meet people and fall in love and start a community around me, the way they used to do in the '60s.

When I put out 'Video Games' in May 2011, it was a 5:25-minute love song; I was surprised when a lot of people said they were listening to it. I was surprised when it went to the radio, without me even knowing how something like that even happens!

Stylistically, I love make-up. I love doing my own make-up and stuff, but clothes-wise, I actually didn't ever really care. Initially the fashion world was more interested in me than the music world, which was strange when I first started singing.

Every now and then the stars align, Boy and girl meet by the great design, Could it be that you and me are the lucky ones? Everybody told me love was blind, Then I saw your face and you blew my mind, Finally you and me are the lucky ones, this time

When I was younger I felt lonely... In terms of my thought processes. I had the constant feeling that I thought differently to everyone around me. So, I suppose I felt lonely for a home. I didn't know where I wanted to be, but I knew I wasn't there yet.

I already have success. I had it a long time ago. It's nothing to do with my music. Music is secondary, at this point. The good stuff is really good, but I have success because I'm at peace and I'm a good person in my everyday life and that's important.

I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba - 'Lana Del Rey' reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

I regret trusting The Guardian. I didn't want to do an interview, but the journalist was persistent. [The writer] was masked as a fan, but was hiding sinister ambitions and angles. Maybe he's actually the boring one looking for something interesting to write about.

My parents were lovely. They've always been supportive. When you love your child, you don't know what to do with someone who wants to do what no one else does successfully. If I had someone younger I loved, I'd be worried for them too if I didn't have guidance to give them.

I was always singing but didn't plan on pursuing it seriously. When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.

I'm happy when things are just kind of calm. I love going to the ocean. I love driving. I love going to shows. Just being with people I really have fun with. I love the summer. I'm happy in the summer. Love hot, hot weather. I'm happy when I'm making a record, most of the time.

I was always a singer, it was nothing anyone planned on me doing for real, because it's an unusual thing. I was just sort of saying, even having modest ambitions to have a small career at singing, it's still really difficult to do that. Everyone wants to sing or act or whatever.

I think the thing I really got from Ginsberg was that you can tell a story through kind of painting pictures with words. And when I found out that you could have a profession doing that, it was thrilling to me. It just became my passion immediately, playing with words and poetry.

I was never successful in a noteworthy way, no one wrote about me, and I didn't have recognition. I've met a lot of musicians along the way who thought I was good, and they knew that was important to me. Having a simple career as a musician who liked music was good enough for me.

Growing up I was always prone to obsession, partly because of the way I am, but partly because after feeling so lonely for such a long time, when I found someone or something that I liked, I felt helplessly drawn to it. I suppose that accounts for some of the creepiness in my music.

When I found somebody who I fell in love with, it made me feel different than I felt the rest of the day. It was electrifying. That's what inspired the 'Off to the Races' melodies. That's one of the times when you're feeling electrified by someone else and they make you happy to be alive.

The thing about me is, coming from an alternative music background and singing for nine years, being basically invisible, I'm so used to writing for myself - and at the end of the day, I do it because I feel like I have to. So when I'm recording or writing, I don't have other people in mind.

I didn't live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don't know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

It’s about a singer who first sneered about my allegedly not authentic style but later she stole and copied it. And now she’s acting like I am the art project and she the true super artist. My God and people actually believe her, she’s successful! I shouldn't continue ranting, it doesn’t get anywhere.

I believe in free love and that's just how I feel. It's just my experience of being with different kinds of men and being born without a preference for a certain type of person. For me, that is my story in finding love in lots of different people, and that's been the second biggest influence in my music.

I believe in Amy Winehouse. I know she’s not with us anymore but I believe she was who she was and in that way she got it right. I would say an actress like Lauren Bacall also got it right. She never let anyone persuade her to be something she wasn't. She was strong. She always looked like she knew what she was doing.

The act of surrendering sort of puts me in a different mindset that allows me to be more of a channel - because I'm not holding on so tightly to things, I'm letting go, and I find that in letting go I become more of a channel for life to really happen on life's terms. I mean, maybe that sounds sort of metaphysical, but that's honestly how I feel.

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