If you don't want to have your private life splashed everywhere, why go to the restaurants and the places you know you're going to be photographed?

I'm not really part of that 'L.A. thing' or that celebrity culture. I'm more like someone who observes it, and I can't ever imagine being like that.

Even when I see a beautiful woman, I think, 'Aw, her life must be amazing.' Everyone does it. That's human nature to believe that beauty is everything.

I do have a memo all the time because I need to be guided by something in my life. I'm not religious and I don't have idols, so something has to drive me.

There's nothing I'd never wear, really. I've worn pink spotty pajamas from a Goodwill store onstage before. This only happens when I'm having a small breakdown!

Love is really my nemesis. I never really allowed myself to indulge in such basic things because I was so motivated and thought that if I did I wouldn't succeed.

I consider myself a feminist because I believe women should have equal rights. Of course. It's just that the term 'feminism' conjures up other things for people.

Everybody is different. Some people like to share more. I just wouldn't want to spoil someone's opinion of me by them knowing me as a person instead of an artist.

If you believe something enough, it comes true eventually, and that's so true even with lies. If you tell yourself a lie, after a few years you'll think it's true.

I didn't even listen to any music until I was 19, really. I just wanted to be famous. But I didn't say it to anyone because I was really embarrassed at the thought.

I feel like artists that are always quite sad in real life always make really happy music, and artists who are really bouncy and bubbly always make really sad music.

I'm just waiting for the moment where it's accepted that women are just as sexual as men without women having to be overtly sexy just to prove how 'liberated' they are.

Obviously when you're a teen you have no money, so you make, like, three outfits out of one dress. You're like, 'OK cut the arms here. Alright: New party, cut them to here.'

I hate the whole 'record your album, do your promo campaign, have a year off to write another album' pattern. As an artist, you should keep creating as much as you possibly can.

Actually, I think that a lot of the interviews and acoustic sessions and other things that artists fill their time with are really pointless and suck the energy out of the artist.

I've read every Madonna biography. I've also looked up every pop star to see how they first made it. The biggest thing I learnt was that you have to be pro-active. You can't be scared.

I am very curvy, so the vintage stores suit me better than most designers. I just can't seem to give up crisps, or make my boobs shrink for that matter. Alas, I will never fit a size zero.

I often take things I find in vintage crawls and hand them to a very good seamstress, who then replicates them and makes a more robust version in different colors, with a pocket for my mic pack.

Sometimes you feel amazing about life and other times you just feel fat and depressed, so I think it's good to be honest about that and to make light of it, I think humour is important, nobody's perfect.

I feel weird without lipstick. Even after the first time I wore a really neon pink or a really bright red, I felt really strange without it there. My lips are a main feature, so I feel naked without them.

I really like the look of the 1950s, lots of suburban Americana influences. I'm 5'4', so I like kitten heels occasionally because I can move around a bit easier, but pointy-toed pumps are very elongating.

Trends in culture all serve a purpose and that's always indicative in fashion and music, you can always tell what's going on culturally in the mindset of the young generation if you look at those mediums.

If you're making too many excuses for someone, agonising over them in a way which takes up all your waking thoughts and feel so nervous around them you could be sick, then they are probably the wrong person.

I don't just want to sing about simplistic things all the time. It's good to have a mix of songs that have a real depth, and that provoke and challenge people, and then songs that are fun and people can enjoy.

My dad's quite a conservative person, and he brought me up to be very questioning of the commercial world. He looked down on pop culture. I definitely got the impression that pop was evil and that Britney Spears was evil.

People are complex, and I think it's a huge element of what I do, because you have to balance out the fact that you talk about quite serious things with a sense of irony and tongue-in-cheek humor. That's my personality as well.

I've always been interested in how fast-moving our identity is and that I've never been able to pin down who I truly am. That inspires me to write, because I feel like that cements me a bit, in that I find my identity in being an artist.

Britney Spears is a big influence. Huge. I think people thought I was joking about that for a long time. But when I was a teenager, there was a genuine connection with this sweet girl who also had this very sexual side that people didn't really want to accept.

I'm interested in how identity is transient. How do we know who we really are, when different situations and environments dictate how we behave? I'm interested in the role we all play. We spend our whole lives becoming ourselves when we are born as no one else.

When you are in the studio, you don't have anybody to feed off of; meanwhile, when you are playing live, you interact with people and you feel the energy in the room. When the crowd is going crazy, that definitely impacts your vocal performance. I prefer to sing live.

I could draw up a list of about 30 artists who I apparently sound like. From Lady Gaga, to Katy Perry to Lana Del Rey. I don't know if it's because I'm versatile or because production affects how people judge music. I can't wait for a time I can just be classed as myself.

[Being in the States] is almost like being on a holiday. It's kind of annoying because everyone's like "Oh, you're so obsessed with America," but it's not really that. I just really enjoy being here - I'm not the first British artist to make music here and be inspired by the country.

I've really come into my own as an artist. I'm much more sure of my identity and understand it much better, and have accepted the fact that I like to jump around a lot in terms of who I am and what kind of music I create, and that it is okay - in fact, that is my main identity, the fact that I do that.

I criticized the whole American songwriting industry and the pop side of it and I was bitter about it. And I stepped back and thought 'Why are you bitter? You can't just stand there like every other indie musician and criticize this so-called 'generic' music when you're not doing anything to challenge that.'

I lived in Greece for about four years of my life, and living there had a huge impact on my life growing up. My father was very much adamant that we would learn about our culture. It's a very rich culture to be a part of since it has such a great history behind it. I definitely carry that in my job, and I am very passionate.

Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything I stand for. And the point of introducing her and building a concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that's the corruption of yourself. My worst fear - that's anyone's worst fear - is to lose myself and become an empty person. And that happens a lot when you're very ambitious.

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