I got signed with the songwriting deal when I was sixteen and they were really great - my publishers, who to this day are still my publishers and are like my musical family, my second family - they took me in and taught me what a good song is.

Speak out your mind and your heart, you won’t be bored.

One of the things I've really realized over the past number of years is that you can't plan - you really don't know what's going to happen. All the plans I made for myself all turned out really differently in the end, so I just go with it.

It’s funny how life can change so much but still nothing changes at all. Or maybe it’s that life changes, but you as a person don’t or maybe we adjust, but don’t actually change.

I think that songwriting is understood from an early age that was the priority to figure out first. Learn to write a good song, and then figure out who you are as an artist because, once you know how to write a good song, you can dress it in any kind of clothing.

I need to be happy. I need to set that example for my daughter so that she goes into something she loves, not because other people want her to do something. It's a good feeling, it's freeing.

The trick to songwriting is writing in a poetic enough way that other people can identify with it.