Somebody who has been in a very bad wreck is going to be very conscientious about not speeding through a yellow light... You just learn so many good lessons when you go through a failed marriage.

I think our culture encourages all of us to always put our best foot forward. I think it's a good thing. I think it's nice to rise to the occasion, to be kind and considerate, and have self control.

The most consistent musical experience I had growing up was church music.

But now it's kind of a given that a 15-year-old would have a record deal and sell a quarter of a million records. No one's expecting her to answer any deep theological questions. And I'll tell you, I was asked some deep theological questions from the git-go.

I've found that music allows years to fold like an accordion over each other, so I guess you don't feel the passage of time as much.

Life is a process, and you just take it a day at a time, and you can't live in tomorrow, and you can't reach back and be in yesterday. No matter how much you want to, you just have what's right there in front of you.

That happened when I was a freshman in high school. The guy reading it [the Bible] was dating my older sister. I thought he was the cutest thing that had ever happened in Nashville. He was nine years older than me and I thought, 'Mimi, I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to steal this guy away.' So I went to this Bible study thinking I was going to make this guy fall in love with me. I was fourteen. Hey, you know. But I was so overwhelmed by what they were talking about at this Bible study. I became a very serious, committed Christian.