Lorde: "I'm totally present and really really attuned to everything that's happening when I'm on stage."

Lorde: "I've totally learned in this process that 99% of the time, your gut is right, and you know what's right for you. I know exactly what's right for my career and for my art, and sometimes, even if the whole room is saying, 'Don't do that, don't do that,' you know that doing that is going to be good for you, in the long run."

Lorde: "Don't be afraid. Be the kind of person your mother warned you about."

Lorde: "I get paralyzingly nervous a lot of times, so I tried bravado. The way I dress and carry myself, a lot of people find it intimidating. I think my whole career can be boiled down to the one word I always say in meetings: 'strength.'"

Lorde: “This record was about giving me a different perspective, because I’m such an intense person with such an intense brain.”

Lorde: "I've always been fascinated with aristocracy. I'm really interested in the Ivy Leagues, the final clubs, all the really old-money families, the concept of old money."

Lorde: "Two things to remember in life: take care of your thoughts when you are alone, and take care of your words when you are with people."

Lorde: “For a lot of people, their teenage years would be where they were most emotionally accessible, and for me it was the opposite. I realized I was feeling all the feelings, and they feel so singular and so young. When I was 16, it felt important to be unfazed by things. Now I’m deeply fazed.”

Lorde: "The phrase 'teen hottie' literally makes me want to throw up."

Lorde: “Everything that’s put out with my name on it should be representative of me and what I want to do as an artist, as opposed to what some dudes in a room think is going to make a lot of money.”

Lorde: "People have told me that I've helped them feel confident, like they can say things they want to say. They can talk about feminism in class without people calling them a lesbian. Thats so amazing that I can make someone feel like that."

Lorde: "I think I'm speaking for a bunch of girls when I say that the idea that feminism is completely natural and shouldn't even be something that people find mildly surprising. It's just a part of being a girl in 2013."

Lorde: "I'm terrified of growing up. Once you become an adult, how to you step back from that? It's something that wakes me up at night."

Lorde: “There’s nothing in me that’s like, ‘Oh, being a famous person is hard,’ because it’s not. I’m very lucky. Yet I feel the weight of all the people I love who sacrifice things to be close to me. And a lot of them are eventually going to leave – which sounds so emo.”

Lorde: "I don't think people look at how pop stars live and feel anything aspirational at all."

Lorde: “My younger self was a tough b*tch! She was just doing exactly what she wanted to do, and she was kind of ruthless. I would sit in these boardrooms and just tell these men things: ‘You don’t actually know anything about this; here’s how it’s going to go.’”

Lorde: "In a perfect world, I would never do any interviews, and probably there would be one photo out there of me, and that would be it."

Lorde: "Taylor Swift is so flawless, and so unattainable, and I don't think it's breeding anything good in young girls [who might think] 'I'm never going to be like Taylor Swift, why can't I be as pretty as Lorde?' That's f*cking bullsh*t."

Lorde: "Does anything really matter? We all end up in the same place. All that's left is our Wikipedia entry."

Lorde: "Obviously I've had this fascination with aristocracy my whole life. Like, the kings and queens of 500 years ago... they're like rock stars. If there was a 'TMZ' 500 years ago, it would be about, like, Henry VIII and Marie Antoinette and all those people."

Lorde: "People respond to something which intrigues them instead of something that gives them all the information - particularly in pop, which is, like, the genre for knowing way too much about everyone and everything."

Lorde: “Making my first record, I would have rather died than have an acoustic guitar. Acoustic guitars were like, bonfires and guys in dumb hats, it was very mid-2000s to me.”

Lorde: "I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't make something different, singular and something that I would be proud of."

Lorde: "Around the middle of last year I started listening to a lot of rap, like Nicki Minaj and Drake... They all sing about such opulence, stuff that just didn’t relate to me - or anyone that I knew. I began thinking, 'How are we listening to this? It’s completely irrelevant.'"

Lorde: "I come from a short fiction background, and my mom is a poet, so I've always read poetry; I've always had a lot of different influences both linguistically and musically."

Lorde: "I curate my life in a way. It's always playing on my mind, kind of a love-hate relationship. I'm not one of those people who's, like, 'I wish Facebook wasn't around,' because, you know, it is what it is."

Lorde: "Ever since I was a kid, I've been into clothes, but not really labels- that's kind of only been in the last year or so. It's something I've always cared about. I used to just constantly thrift and make stuff and cut stuff up and borrow my dad's stuff and borrow my little brother's stuff and all that jazz. ... It's just, if something is cool, then it's cool."

Lorde: "I'm a pop princess at heart. Pop is about distilling what you want to say and making it easy. And the way I write isn't about making things easy. It's a weird juxtaposition."

Lorde: "I love Top 40 pop, don't get me wrong; I just don't think that there's anyone in Top 40 pop that's 'real.'"

Lorde: "What I do is so important to me. It’s like being a parent, in some ways, of a super-demanding , high-achieving child, with a cry that sounds really cool on the radio."

Lorde: "The smarter the person, the more boring the instagram account."

Lorde: "I'm really interested in kind of weird social situations and cliques, watching girls vying for attention, watching how the popularity thing happens. I've always thought too hard about everything."

Lorde: "My advice to young people wanting to make music and to be in this industry is to really spend your time making music. Make so much music you have no friends. Make music. Figure out what it is you love, and... because if you're making cool art, then everything else will fall into line."

Lorde: “I always saw myself, with my writing, as like an anthropologist. It was just about observing. This time I was thrust into the soup of what I was doing. I couldn’t be detached or cool anymore.”

Lorde: “Since the day I was born, I was the kid who stays at the party for an hour, then walks upstairs and sits with her book.”

Lorde: “Part of me feels like everything I do from now on, if it’s not as big as ‘Royals,’ some people will perceive it as a failure. But for me, I’m going to spend my life worshipping the form.”

Lorde: "My dad is a civil engineer, and my mom is a stay-at-home mom. The fact that my parents weren't really involved in music was kind of good, because it meant that I had something that was private and personal."

Lorde: "I'd refer to myself as a feminist. I don't think my music is overtly rooted in feminism."

Lorde: "When I was trying to come up with a stage name, I thought 'Lord' was super rad, but really masculine - ever since I was a little kid, I have been really into royals and aristocracy. So to make Lord more feminine, I just put an 'e' on the end! Some people think it's religious, but it's not."

Lorde: "I know when I'm onstage, I don't think about how it looks, I just concentrate on really feeling what I hear."

Lorde: "We all have Tumblr, and we all have Instagram and everything. People care so much about it because, now, any random can be famous on the Internet if their world looks good on Tumblr. And so everyone at high school strives for this kind of aesthetic correctness."

Lorde: "I love thrift shopping. You can get ten things because everything costs, like, three dollars."

Lorde: "I'm speaking for a bunch of girls when I say that the idea that feminism is completely natural and shouldn't even be something that people find mildly surprising, it's just a part of being a girl in 2013."

Lorde: "I'm a teenager, and 95 percent of my friends are boys, and that's just the way I've always been."

Lorde: “That kind of searching, being unsure that I had chosen the right path and feeling lonely, I don’t see those as permanent or even bad emotions. It’s all part of the thing – to feel that trepidation. Maybe it is sad, but I’m very comfortable in the periods of limbo, or times where I feel afraid or vulnerable.”

Lorde: "I think young people are the most creative and the coolest - people that we should be learning from. Even when I'm at a party, I'm analyzing it and thinking about it in the context of how I would write about it. That side of me never switches off."

Lorde: "My name is Ella; that's who I am at school, hanging out with friends, while I'm doing homework. But when I'm up on stage, 'Lorde' is a character."

Lorde: "I try to stay away from talking about boys all the time. You can go to Taylor Swift to hear that."

Lorde: “A lot of people make pop music because it will make them rich, I make this music because I’m obsessed with it and I think it’s the best thing in the world.”

Lorde: "With pop music and pop musicians, you know everything about everyone all the time, particularly their physical appearance. With female musicians, that's made a big thing of, and I think people, certainly with me, have appreciated a bit of mystery."

Lorde: "It must have been when I was 14 or 15 that I started tentatively writing songs and was able to convey an emotion and a lyric with what I wanted to say."

Lorde: "I find a lot of feminist reading quite confusing and that often there's a set of rules, and people will be like, 'Oh, this person isn't a true feminist because they don't embody this one thing,' and I don't know, often it can be a gray area, and it can be a hard thing to navigate."

Lorde: “I don’t think of Solar Power as a shallow moment, it’s still very much a moment of depth and it feels very big to me, it’s just also light and flirty.”

Lorde: "I’m a maniac, my ears are unparalleled. You can’t get a thing past me."

Lorde: “I come from a big, loud family, and I'm the quieter one. Performing is something I have to switch on. I've heard I get real sassy onstage, which I'm not in real life! It's fun to be that person for an hour a night.”