“Life is so much more rewarding if you strive for something, rather than take what’s given to you on a plate.”

I love America, it’s a much more permissive place.

We only said goodbye with words I died a hundred time, you go back to her and I go back to black.

I always said I never wanted to write about love, but then I went and did that anyway.

When you’re around kids you can be a little kid yourself and pretend that life is magic and you don’t have to be one of those sweaty people going to work every day.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

And as a writer, your self-worth is literally based on the last thing you wrote.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

I’m not trying to stay away from being a celebrity, I’m not saying, ‘I’m sooo not famous,’ I’m trying to continue being a musician in a time when everyone is very celebrity-led.

I don’t ever wanna drink again, I just, ooh I just need a friend.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

I was gutted to leave my boyfriend at home when I started my tour, but taking my pillow was like taking a little bit of him with me.

All the songs I write are about human dynamics, whether it’s with girlfriends, boyfriends, or family.

The more people see of me, the more they’ll realize that all I’m good for is making tunes.

I don’t need help because if I can’t help myself I can’t be helped.

People say my content’s mature, I don’t think it’s mature at all. I’m just a normal 20 year old. I’m opinionated.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

And I don’t think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there’s another set of moral codes, but I don’t think government has a role.

I savor life. When you have anything that threatens life it prods you into stepping back and really appreciating the value of life and taking from it what you can.

Through reading, I escaped the bad parts of my life in the South Bronx. And, through books, I got to travel the world and the universe. It, to me, was a passport out of my childhood and it remains a way – through the power of words – to change the world.

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one’s faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one’s life.

Once you become fearless, life becomes limitless.

Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.

Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun and a pair of dogs does not know how to enjoy life.

Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun and a pair of dogs does not know how to enjoy life.