When I was growing up, my dad would always be playing Motown around the house. He loved Stevie Wonder and the Supremes and got me into Dionne Warwick. It was the best music I'd ever heard. It was just that extremely deep, human, thought-out stream of ideas. You can always hear something new when you listen to that music.

I wasn't taken seriously being the only girl playing in band growing up.

Growing up, I had a natural love for women like Diana Ross, Mary Wells, Ella Fitzgerald. Then I got into Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, and Patsy Cline.

I had to do so much self-searching and self-work and learning how to navigate in a world that seemed very mean.

Happiness is composed of misfortunes avoided.

Life is about making your own happiness - and living by your own rules.

Setting is my primary joy as a writer, building a world and watching people respond to it.

We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.