“Writing isn't a job so much as a compulsion. I've been writing since I...” — Siri Hustvedt Quote

Writing isn't a job so much as a compulsion. I've been writing since I was very young because for some strange reason, I must write, and also because when I write, I feel more alive and closer to the world than when I'm not writing.

I've come to understand that migraine is a part of the personality. I have migraine troughs. These often follow high productivity. I have a hypo-manic phase, then I'll crash.

I'd been writing poems for many years, but most of them I didn't like. Then, when I was 23, I wrote one I did like, sent it to 'The Paris Review' - the highest publication I could think of - and they accepted it. No other moment in my literary life has quite come close to that.

Sleep resistance, bouts of insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, crawling into bed with parents in the middle of the night - all these are so common among children, it seems fair to call them 'normal.'

Playing live is closer to theatre, although when you're up there on your own, it's quite scary and revealing because you're playing your own songs. It's like a one man show that you've written yourself.

I've grown a lot as a singer and a songwriter, but also as a person. I communicate better with my band, and our relationships are stronger and closer.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It's a natural process.

Families can get torn apart and never recover or they grow even closer.

A real estate closer. Oh, what's that? I'm a real estate opener. What is a real estate closer? You mean at the end where you've got to sign all those papers?