Alison Sudol

I love the clean elegance of cream and black.

Whether it's a photograph or a piece of clothing, a leather bag or a film, I tend to gravitate towards simple, beautifully made, quietly lovely things. They make me happy.

There's something about a long, high-waisted skirt and little, buttoned blouse that I really love.

There's a certain amount of pressure that you get from being a popular artist, and I think in the past I put a lot of pressure on myself, too. But I always knew that writing hits wasn't really my strong suit.

I do love to dance, and that's fun, but I will never stop writing my quiet, sensitive songs.

I won't do the same thing over and over again.

You won't find me out in a club. I'm a bit unruly, in my own way.

I just love the holidays so much.

As a musician, you kinda get used to failure in life, and then when things actually start succeeding, it's a very interesting feeling.

Once one goal is checked off, you have to up the ante just to keep yourself sane.

A boy I adored when I was 19 gave me the 'Emigrante' album by Orishas. Definitely not my normal taste, but I still kind of love it.

When you have goals and dreams and things that you've been wanting your whole life, and then they actually start happening and you start checking things off your list, it's like, whaaat? Huhhh?

How many women have been in a mental institution because they've been called crazy when they're just not allowed to be honest or be who they are?

I can Hula-Hoop and read a book at the same time.

I'm a terrible parallel parker.

I'm a big cinephile. Love, love, love films.

Besides a princess and a ballerina and a firefighter and a vet, I think I wanted to be an artist.

When I am going through something monumental or difficult in my life it is hard to look at it as it is because it is too much.

As a person life has always been a bit of a challenge for me and I have spent so much of my early years in fear and I think that making music makes me want to be more courageous.

I think something that is never really spoken about is the learning process of making records - I made my first record at twenty one and learned so much about record making from that before making 'Bomb In A Birdcage' a couple of years later.

Stories have always been incredibly comforting and can help illuminate things that are hard to understand other wise.

I want to find more ways of planting trees and helping fight against deforestation.

Coldplay's music is so uplifting but not cheesy. You listen to it and you're taken away. It's so honest. There's kindness to their music.

I was in a commercial when I was three. My godfather was a director and a producer of commercials. He took me in along with his kids and I couldn't remember my lines. I giggled my way through the commercial and they kept it.

I think I had a lot of fear, even when I was really young, that I was going to be seen as something that I didn't want to be. I didn't really know how to be myself well enough to be comfortable being someone else.

I do consider myself an actress now. I think 'Dig' and 'Transparent' have given me the confidence.

Sometimes we get so focused on the results that we miss doing it - we miss the adventure of being in the midst of something because we're looking too far ahead.

My architectural education is way, way incomplete, but if you're in a beautifully designed space, it can change the way you see and the way you feel. The same way great movies and great music can immerse you, so can a space.

I actually wanted to be an architect when I was a kid, but I did a solid geometry course where we had to build a geodesic dome out of toothpicks, and mine came out looking like an alien space station. I threw it against a wall and gave up.

There are two things I love about Temescal. One is the sense of space that you get when you get to the top. You can see for ages. You can see the ocean spread out before you, but you also feel like you're in the mountains. And second is the smell of it, which I love most when I've been traveling a long time.

If I'm in a social situation where I'm triggered, I go into the bathroom and move and shake and breathe.

I'm learning to communicate honestly and knock it off with the hiding.

It seems to me, personally, that the things that are great during Christmastime are magnified. Like everything is that much better. Everything is magical and spectacular. The things that are wrong or sad are just so much more wrong or sad.

Pines' is a different kind of album for me. It was a different approach, everything about it, I just went at it as if I had never made a record before basically.

I feel like for me my happiest moments are tinged with the awareness that there's sadness on the flipside of the coin.

It's fun to play for the 12- and 13-year-olds. The looks on their faces are amazing. Young kids don't have social anxieties. They'll yell things out and sing loudly.

I love doing free shows because then anyone can come.

I always wanted to be an artist of some sort and I was really shy growing up, so performing didn't really seem like a natural choice, but whenever I got on stage to do something I felt more comfortable than I did in real life.

I love Bright Eyes - I absolutely love him.

I grew up listening to a lot of classic jazz, and stuff like The Beatles, and old Motown stuff, and a lot of classical music. I just loved all of that.

I really listened to a lot of oldies. I didn't really listen to anything that was modern until I was 11 or 12.

If you're gonna steal from somebody, why not Shakespeare?

I mean, I knew that one day I'd do something writing-oriented as soon as I started writing. But when I started singing, I was determined to make those two work together, so I just worked at it until I started making stuff that sounded like music.

I was a very quiet kid who didn't feel normal being outgoing and running around, so all the beauty that was in my life, I found in books. Books that made me think and transported me into a different world.

I have all sorts of weird albums that people have given me lying around the house.

I have a huge love for architecture.