“I just remember really loving words and writing about anything I could, and the way I’d remember things, like my library card number, was to make a melody.”

When you start to have success, people look at you differently and expect more from you. With that comes a lot of pressure to perform, so it can be a little overwhelming.

When you first start out, people think this is super easy and you find your crew super quick. But you’ve really got to go through songwriter boot camp to find your people.

I grew up in Davenport, Iowa, but I moved to Santa Clarita, California, when I was 6.

I had all these singles come out within a two-month period, and then nothing for almost two years. You start to feel a little irrelevant. You realize how many people there are trying to be songwriters and how competitive it is and how political things can be.

If you listen to the radio, it’s all men who are emotional and women who are sexual. There’s nothing wrong with that! It definitely should be the case, but it makes me sad that women are afraid to be emotional because it makes them look weak.

I’m a very stimulated person.

I’ve written poetry most of my life.

Once I heard how deep music could touch people and what it can make you feel and all of these emotions it could bring out, I was really fascinated with it all.

I just want to write fun, interesting music that pushes boundaries and is still true to myself. I want people to feel something.

My boyfriend and I like to fight a lot. I have a lot of problems. He has a lot of problems. Somehow, we always work them out and find a way back to each other.

I definitely always thought of myself as a songwriter before a singer.

My sister was the singer, and I always had the mentality there could only be one in the family.

If I get writer’s block – this is going to sound funny – I take a shower. Something about the water feels like I’m cleaning my brain as well as my body.

I just wanted to write the songs. I never wanted to sing them.

I think artists are aware that talking gives a songwriter so much material. If they just tell us what’s happening, it’s so much easier for us to write a song that’s specific to them.

I would give anything to hold your hands like this again.

I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.

If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.

A house that has a library in it has a soul.

A library is a place where you can live a thousand lives. So why are you waiting when you could be living? Visit your library today.

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

When all else fails, give up and go to the library.

In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation’s future.