When you don't have people in your life pushing you, can you push yourself?

When I am able to be present, listening - really listening - to a viewpoint described through someone else's lens, I am here in the now and alive.

I don't choose to analyze what I have done and I think that is the right choice, because then I won't be spending my time creating.

It took the love of a good man [to heal]. When I was reverting back into my, let's say, perversions, he would say: 'Let's go get an ice cream. I am not going to enable you. If you can only come as a wanton woman for hire, because you feel dirty and shamed, then no. Women are goddesses.' And I know that and I believe that. I chose a man who believed that, too.

You have to be clear what your message is and what you're doing. I mean, Miley Cyrus is an amazing talent, and sometimes you kind of just want to say, 'We know you're not Hannah Montana anymore. We know that, my dear. My darling. Now, go be great.'

When the mothers start to shatter, then everything just comes undone.

The most important thing to me as a songwriter is the breath. The most important thing I could say to somebody is, 'Sometimes I just breathe you in.'