I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is - this thing that happens to everyone, so I've heard.

I haven't had that one great love, which is good. I don't want that to be in the past - I want it to be in the future.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what's really happening to me, even if it's a tough pill to swallow for people around me.... I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

You can spend so much time wanting someone and they can have absolutely no idea.

I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

It's one of the craziest feelings to be on stage and know that you were sitting on your bedroom floor when that song came to be and now there's an arena full of people singing it.