Quotes

I'm a huge Katharine Hepburn fan.

'The Philadelphia Story' is one of my favorite movies, as is 'Bringing Up Baby.'

I love old Hollywood. I love our early film culture.

I'm a big fan of teachers.

My mother was a teacher.

Travel is the only way to get empathy for other people's mindsets - to know their struggles and what they're drawn to.

Meghan Markle is one of the loveliest human beings on the planet, in the world.

I'm drawn to scenes in movies where you just see characters turning off lights in a room or putting the groceries away; it's like, 'I understand that.' We all have to get ready for bed, and we all do it in a different way, and yet it's all strangely familiar and strangely human.

I was born in Evanston, Illinois. I spent my elementary and part of my junior high school years in a D.C. suburb. And then I spent my high school years in Minnesota. And then I spent my college years in Colorado. And then I spent some time living in China. And then I spent three years in Vermont before moving down to Nashville.

When I first started playing the banjo and miraculously fell into a record deal in Nashville, TN, there was a period when I didn't go to China. It hurt. Like a pain in my gut... that pain you feel when you know it's time to connect with your parents or your God or your child or your past or your future... and you don't do it.

I reside in a new colony for the Chinese-singing banjo player, with a population of one. At least I have something I have to do with my life.

My parents played the radio, but music was never an obsession or something that I thought I could call a career.

I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.

I played piano and was always in the choir. I tried to play flute because all the pretty girls played flute.

I would still describe China as a vast, invigorating puzzle that will never make sense to my western upbringing.

One thing I carried my whole life, especially from my grandparents in Chicago, was a huge idealism for the world.

As a child, I went to peace and ERA marches on the back of my mom and grandmother. Through them I learned that I wanted to find a way to make the world a more kind, compassionate place.

In China, I realized that if you visit often enough and learn the language, you will be assimilated, but you'll still be kept at arm's length; you'll always be looked on as a foreigner.

Whenever I visited China in the past, the relationships always felt superficial; there was no time where I felt those moments of conflict and delight that make you feel close to another person. But since I started touring there in 2004, I would always collaborate with local musicians, and that opened up a new level of intimacy.

You can enjoy many different types of music. I think that's something more Americans should think about.

I really believe in the power of music.

My whole drive is to make sure that music is a common space where we search for beauty and share it. It needs to be louder than any conversation. That's where we have to go as a human race.

'Halo' I wrote with my grandpa in his nursing home. When I went to visit him, he'd often comment on my halo. But of course, I couldn't see. And he always - he had pictures of Jesus with these beautiful halos. And so I asked him if he'd write a song with me about Jesus' halo.

I feel like the one insight that's extremely comforting to me about the world is that we all share the same pool of emotion that we draw from.

I'm, I guess you could say, the Chinese-speaking, banjo-picking girl.