The more I separate myself from my upbringing, the more I appreciate what it's done for me.

I started writing songs, I guess, when I was about 13 or 14, but I didn't know if they were good enough yet or anything.

If you come into success too soon, you'll burn out and be finished before you know it. If you let the maturation process happen naturally, you'll be happier with yourself in the end.

I don't keep a journal anymore. I did when I was a teenager, but now because I write about it all in my songs, that's what I'm really doing.

Just because I'm talking about something that might have been a sad or painful situation doesn't mean that I'm sad or tortured 24 hours a day any more than anybody else is.

I feel a lot more comfortable being me these days. I'm constantly told that my work is good. A lot of fans and a lot of other artists say my songs and albums mean a lot to them. Isn't that what's important?

I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.