Tift Merritt

In France, I discovered that I love writing in the city. There's such an intensity to being in the city that matches the intensity of what you're experiencing in your head.

France was very opposite of the show-business experience I'd been living; I was anonymous and alone. I wore no makeup, wore the same clothes every day. And I wrote and wrote and wrote.

I travel in a Ford Econoline van with a trailer. So it's not quite so glamorous.

I would've done anything to work with Satyajit Ray.

There's never been anything I didn't love that I didn't connect with on a personal level because, to some degree, I projected upon it.