People forget how outcast 'They Might Be Giants' can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft, funny, clever melodies, and they also make a lot of music for kids, which is terrific, but when you see them in concert, they can rock the house.

We all know what it feels like to be an outcast or a loner or to fall between the cracks. To be the target of gossip or people talking about you, or girls are ganging up on you. One minute, they're your best friend; the next, they call you on three-way.

At one point in time or another, everyone's an outcast, and you have to deal with those sort of issues in society. Especially for teenage kids, I don't think there's anyone that's really been through childhood and not been an outcast in one way or another.

Everybody feels like an outcast because the world is so large and every fingerprint is so vastly different from one another, and yet we have these standards and beliefs, and dogmatic systems of judgment and ranking, in almost all the societies of the world.

As I got into middle school, I was really an outcast. But everybody was an outcast in middle school. I don't know who got the idea to put all kids going through puberty together in a school and give them academic elitism and competition and pit them against each other.

One of the ways I stuck out was I was a very passionate reader. There was probably a cyclical nature to that; the more I felt like an outcast, the more I sought refuge in books, and the more I sought refuge in books, the more it made me not speak the same language as my peers.

I was kind of a misfit, actually. When you're young, you want to be like everybody else, and I was like nobody else. I couldn't sit still. I was impulsive. I still am. What is now called a 'talent' did not serve me well as a child. I didn't have friends. I was really an outcast.

Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off humanity's dirty plates, though often sometimes taking a cab to a restaurant is more convenient.

I think when you're a tall girl, you feel a little bit like an outcast. You have to go to the back of the photo. You're taller than all the boys. I know I felt more like an outsider. And then as I got older, I just got used to it. I got like, 'I don't date under 6 feet.' That's my policy.

Maleficent has suffered abuse in the past, and there's a reason why she is now as furious as she is. And I think that children who have been outcast and abused in any way will relate to her. There's a beautiful side to her; she's not just a dark person. She has all these facets. And that is interesting.

The message of Jesus is summed up partly in the Sermon on the Mount, and partly when he begins his ministry and quotes the passage from Isaiah: 'I have come to set free the prisoners and restore sight to the blind.' And certainly, his mission is also to bring hope. It was to heal people, to befriend the outcast.

I was in school - I was a good learner; if I wanted to get something done, I could get it done. I was lazy, though. I was always, like, sort of an outcast. And when I got home, I was always doing music, but when I was doing music, no one was there to judge it, you know? It was just me in my bedroom. It gave me freedom and made me happy.

Share This Page