I used to sing with my father's jazz band and then when I was ten years old a musician friend of his suggested that I try out for the first west coast production of Annie.

Originally I considered myself a singer.

Not all women write the same. But I don't understand why the model is that you're supposed to write like a man, and that means you're a real writer.

Sometimes when people have kids young, they're not ready.

I felt all the things that other teenagers felt. I was insecure in lots of ways, over-confident in others. I was very emotional. Excitable.

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.

To preach abstinence, I think, is absolutely not the right message to give to kids.