(Talk about Kelly Pickler)"She's like a sister.People say we're such opposites, but that's what makes us such good friends. She's incredibly blunt. I love that about her. If some guy has said or done something to me she doesn't like, she'll grab my cell phone and say, 'I'm deleting his number.

I've never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I've wanted the music to do that.

I never get tired of signing autographs 'cause I used to do it so much in class dreaming about the day that it might mean something to somebody.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

I've been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what's going on in their love lives.

I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60!

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it's a better way of telling the stories.