I always wrote about things that were important to me. I think our past success showed that it was also important for a lot of others.

Every time I try to disown that concept for myself, which is a really healthy perspective, they bring it back all the time. It's so serious and so real and so tangible that you don't want to taint it with anything other than the thing itself. I was tickled pink with my very zen self, walking around saying that I made a record because I wanted to make a record. That's so beautiful. It's like a haiku poem. That takes away all the tension and the expectation. I just want to try to do something interesting.

Somehow, something is always suffering. Someone is always losing out somehow. If you pick one kid up, you're not picking the other one up. You just try to minimize those small let-downs because, in a way, life is a series of let-downs from everyone, all the time. We don't mean it, but it happens. So, I just try to minimize that and spread them wide.

I always work hard to have a very close connection to the fans.

It goes without saying that what a girl goes through, boys could not even comprehend. If we get the flu, we need a week. We're idiots. But what was the most powerful realization to me was, how do single mothers with a low income cope? I can't complain about my dumb life. That's what was most revelatory to me.

But it is really, really fun to just change it up some and to absolutely be a very small spoke on a big wheel, and to just be a part of that and contribute to something that people can enjoy.

Bob Dylan has a way with words that simply blows me away. When he forgets his lyrics he just makes up new ones on the spot, that is what I called talented!