It's amazing how quickly things start to change when you haven't slept. Your memory goes. Physically, you don't feel well. Emotionally, you're all over the place - you know, if you miss one night of sleep. You can only imagine five nights of not sleeping. I was in an alternate state of reality.

Jenny Lewis

Maybe love won't let you down. All of your failures are training grounds and just as your back's turned, you'll be surprised... as your solitude subsides.

Jenny Lewis

training failure solitude

Whenever I have a bunch of tunes written, I always find a kind of uniform that accompanies the songs.

Jenny Lewis

uniforms tunes song

I was born in Las Vegas and my babysitter was a female Elvis Presley impersonator. My first memory is being in her arms and she was fully dressed up as Elvis. She was an avid thrift-shopper so I started going to thrift shops when I was very young. You could put something together for no money at all.

Jenny Lewis

avid las-vegas memories

As hard as I try to sound tough and dark, I still sound cute.

Jenny Lewis

dark cute trying

I felt like hip-hop was my music, it was like my outsider music... but then my mom started answering our phone, 'Yo, what's up.' She was hearing me talk to my friends. I was like, 'No, mom, don't cop the hip-hop talk.

Jenny Lewis

hip-hop phones mom

I think I have a hard time expressing myself in my relationships. I use songs to tell people how I'm feeling. If I can't say 'I love you,' I'll write a song about it and hope that the person figures it out.

Jenny Lewis

love-you writing song

I write music, really, to make myself feel better.

Jenny Lewis

feel-better writing

When you make a solo record, it's you. It's your name. It has to be the right songs for how you feel. It just took me a really long time to get to a place where I felt comfortable with the material and the recording.

Jenny Lewis

names song long

I tend to work well within a deadline. If I know I have to get something in three weeks, I tend to A, enjoy myself a little bit more, and B, really work well.

Jenny Lewis

week three littles

I think you kind of lose the human aspect when you make things too perfect.

Jenny Lewis

kind perfect thinking

I think life is the most important thing and you have to live that first and then you're art comes second.

Jenny Lewis

important art thinking

I'm a control freak with regards to certain aspects. I think you just have to be when you're making stuff in the world. You have to have a clear idea what you want.

Jenny Lewis

world ideas thinking

If you wanna get to heaven, get out of this world.

Jenny Lewis

this-world heaven world

I'm removed in my real life, and unable to express certain things face to face. So I have always found myself in this fantasy world. That's why I started writing songs and stories from a very young age. I'd much rather walk around anonymously cooking up tales than face the people that I have known forever.

Jenny Lewis

real writing song

Sometimes things feel hopeless. Not always within my own life - but looking outward, it seems like rough times lie ahead of us. The world seems to be kind of caving in on itself in a lot of ways. But I try to look on the bright side.

Jenny Lewis

look be-kind life world

I'm a late bloomer. It's taken me a long time to find my voice, and I think all the records I've made over the years, I was finding my voice, and that's part of the process.

Jenny Lewis

me long-time time long

When I was 18, I took a trip to Thailand with a friend. We stayed for a month. Bangkok was very raw for a teenager: there were no cellphones, no Internet, and the only music I had with me was this cassette by Liz Phair. I was writing a lot of poetry, and she embodied a talky style of songwriting that I found very accessible.

Jenny Lewis

me style music poetry

You can find me at three in the morning in my living room with a glass of wine and really bad '90s trip hop beats blaring from my headphones.

Jenny Lewis

me you wine morning

I've always tried to get around writing love songs, I guess because I've always had a hard time saying, 'I love you.'

Jenny Lewis

you i-love-you time love

Being in a band is a really magical thing because you've got a family and you operate as this one entity. It's very democratic; everyone is involved in the output. But within that, there can be a lot of disagreements and strife.

Jenny Lewis

everyone you band family