The mall is good for hearing new music because you hear music everywhere. I like to walk around the mall and hear what the kids are listening to, or what's the feel of Middle America, cause that's what the mall is.

I try to reach for the stars because if you say you want something small and it happens, you don't believe it. So I try to say something wild and crazy.

I'm young. You can't just sit there and be satisfied. People are like, "You've got all these number ones!" "Yeah...what else?" It all translates into money, and that's how people think of being successful, but my success, I feel like, is credit - credit for a good job. I haven't even gotten a Grammy, yet I've already decided I want an Emmy.

My music teacher was like, "Ester, you need to pay attention in class." I'm like, "No miss lady, 'cause I can sing." I didn't want anybody to change the way I sung. I learned by gospel CDs and by watching my momma sing; I didn't need this teacher to tell me. I wish I had, because then I would have learned how to play the damn piano or something. I would have a couple of more things under my belt if I wasn't so hard-headed.

Acting becomes my real job, writing becomes my second job, and then when I turn 50, I think I'm going to open up an interior decorating company.

I'm a very emotional writer. I always need to have a boyfriend. I always need to have some food. I always need to have a heater at my feet, and I drink this thing called Cool Brew, which I found in Louisiana. It's like condensed coffee.

Everyone in my family can sing - my momma can sing, my cousins. I was in the third grade and I was that kid who was so bad in school because I could sing.