I always felt like I could combine good pop songs that are easy for people to like with a real person and a real mind and integrity.

People say, "I can't take you seriously because you're so young." But I think when you're young, what you feel is more pure.

Having access to mobile phones and being able to document your own life brings people together.

I wondered what things what things became when you no longer needed them, and I wondered what the future would hold once we'd gotten past our personal tragedies and proven them ultimately survivable.

All the big pop acts that I've been into over the years - whether it's ABBA or Prince - managed to combine amazing melodies and honest human emotion. But coming out of the super-super-commerical pop industry in the 90s, maybe people forgot about the fact that pop music can do both of those things.

You have to invest something [in your work]. If you don't risk something that really matters to you - like your integrity, or your pride, or your time, or your security, or your reputation - if you don't risk yourself, you can hear it right away.

Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could be only moments away from disaster. That everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary - a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen.