Born on November 10th

"No one wants to hear the truth if it isn't what they want to hear."

"TV news is what you want it to be, and if you want it to be different, take a look at what you watch."

"We are in the business of gathering the news. We're not in the business of talking about the news."

"Television is the most perfect democracy. You sit there with your remote control and vote."

"I have no problem with the security... It's something that must be done for the times in which we live. Safety first."

"I know the difference between journalism and a slogan."

"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."

"I would say I've always lived creativity, but now I - I do it with an intention that's got a completely different power."

"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."

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

"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 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."

"Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech always sends me down some path, some trajectory of some creative idea."

"I've noticed that the more I open up, the more I learn."

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

"I do get around. Geographically, that is."

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

"For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me."

"I have a general sense of mission, and I intuitively know when something is influencing that mission. I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Doors keep opening. In the end, it's the best use of my skills. I've finally consented to the idea that I'm an artist."

"I believe in the old, because it shows us where we come from - where our souls have risen from. And I believe in the new, because it gives us the opportunity to create who we are becoming."

"I believe in music because it has the power of change."

"You have to try things you're really afraid of, even if you pee yourself a little bit."

"One of my favorite albums in the world is Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska.' Each song has this very distinct character who has something profound to say."

"I've moved around so much my whole life, and I've gotten so used to being the Other in situations - the foreigner, the outsider. The first time I've ever felt like there was no separation between me and the other elements was in music."