The fact of the matter is, when I'm on tour, I'm juggling so hard to keep all the balls in the air that I don't often get to really enjoy what I'm out there doing.

To me, the real thrill is in making the music, and then I just trust it to find its own audience, and at times it's big and at times it's small, but that's beyond my control.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd run barefoot, relax a bit more, I'd talk more to children, and I'd learn how they laugh.

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.

Love's for fools wise enough to take a chance.

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.

I started my teenage years singing in churches across America, and finally wound up on a big stage.