If you leave home for a while ... you question the conventional wisdom you've grown up with. That doesn't mean you have to change your opinions or who you are, but it's good to ask the questions.

I wish I had been more prepared, both for success and for failure, when I was younger.

I think people assume that women write about the domestic sphere. Women write about relationships and family. Men do, too, but then it's the Great American Novel.

Did you work for the money to buy those earrings? Or did your Daddy buy those for you?

My dad has always just had a lot of faith in me as an artist and as a person, and he doesn't really dispense with a lot of advice when it comes to the music. He's taught me a lot over the years, but when I was taking on this project he's really hands-off about that. He just appreciates what I've done and is very supportive, and of course really proud.

I've always been the go-to girl for all of my girlfriends in terms of relationship advice or clothing advice.

Whenever people ask me how I manage to get through this whole crazy time of being incredibly famous and sort of an icon and supposedly a role model and all of this insanity, I always cite my family and then books. I don't know what I would have done without books.