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.

I'm a songwriter. Everything affects me.

My audience has really become a very diverse group of people. It's not just 15-year-old girls. That's kind of what allows me to write from all the different places I want to write from.

The only thing I can't control is the spin in the press. And so if I know I can't control that, I have to let it go.

So to you, or anyone else who has spent four minutes on me in some way-- listening to just one song, or watching one of my videos….Thank you. I love you like I love sparkles and having the last word. And that's real love.

and you come away with a great little story of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you

Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse.