As a new artist there's always outside influences trying to tell you how to make a song better for radio and how to do your hair.

Music is what I always turn to when I'm feeling a certain way. It's my reason for everything.

I get terrible butterflies. Before I go onstage, I'll have to freak out for five minutes. I scream. It seems to help!

It wasn't that I got pinned against my locker, but I was intensely aware that the things I valued weren't shared by anyone. Girls didn't like me, and I had few friends.

I think that my relationship with my fans has been very special from day one. It's been very special in spite of the fact that I don't think I would ever be able to call myself a press darling. I don't think there's ever been a superficial hype machine around me.

I did not practice hours a day for eighteen years to have my success attributed to a myth.

When I started in the music business, travel became a huge part of my world, where it hadn't been at all. I visited parts of the world that I'd never been to and found that I was spending maybe 30 days at home a year.