You have to not only live your life in spite of people who don't understand you, you have to have more fun than they do.

When I think about the things that cause me pain or the things that cause me trouble or frustration, it's not people asking for my autograph; it's people breaking my heart. That happens to you whether you've sold millions of records or whether you're taking classes at college. You're going to believe people when they say that they love you. I don't leave out details when I write songs about that. I try to make my songs as personal as possible because, ultimately, my music started out as just trying to turn my diary entries into something that was a piece of music. And that has never changed.

When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it's been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can't stop thinking about.

I'm the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that's horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

There are no rules when it comes to love. I just try to let love surprise me because you never know who you’re going to fall in love with.

Sometimes when relationships end, you write an e-mail and say everything you wish you said. Sometimes you don't push send.

I've always just wished that maybe someday people would care about the words that I wrote.