“I love my body. I’m very much OK with it. I don’t think artists are ever the ones who have the problem with their weight, it is other people.”

I’m cute – and God I hate that. Because that’s not cool. I’m like your niece, and nobody wants to date their niece. It’s the chubby cheeks. The whole reason people voted for me on American Idol is because I’m an everyday, normal girl.

And more so now, since having a family – I don’t seek out any other acceptance.

People are really concerned about my relationship status. When I tell people I’m happy being single, they don’t believe me. They say: ‘You have to be miserable being alone’.

I was a poor kid, and my mom was a single mother of three.

This is my life; these are my fingerprints; I’m unique; this is what I want to do. You worry about your own front porch and what’s happening in your own world.

I’ve loved my 20s, but I would never repeat them.

I’m waiting for the floor to drop out from under me.

Everyone says I’m like the girl next door. Y’all must have really weird neighbors!

I don’t obsess about my weight, which is probably one of the reasons why other people have such a problem with it.

I would not be a good mother. I mean, I love being an aunt to my niece and nephew. And I used to want to, like, adopt 10 kids – because I had friends who were adopted, and I thought that was the coolest thing, to be chosen. But again, my job is too selfish.

I have the world’s worst pregnancies.

Never take advice from someone you wouldn’t trade places with.

People keep asking me if I am having more fun, being blonde, but I always have fun! Whether I’m blonde, redhead, or brunette! I always have fun.

I’m proud of everything I achieved with ‘Idol,’ and away from ‘Idol’ also. It’s just such a different show now to what it was when I was on it. I didn’t even know it was a TV show until the third audition.

Honestly, I just think we all have special gifts, everyone. You know, obviously, some are more noticeable than others and that’s why there’s the limelight. Everybody’s in it.

I’ve just never cared what people think. It’s more if I’m happy and I’m confident and feeling good, that’s always been my thing.

Being an artist is this kind of occupation in which you have to make people care about your obsession.

An artist could have a really big relationship, and then they break up, and any song after that, people are automatically going to assume that that song is about that person.

The artist is not a man who describes, but a man who feels.

And this is what was fascinating to me about ‘The Help’; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.

The moment artists can just do what they love to do then music will go right back to where it used to be. I mean back in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, that’s what it was.

Just because I’m an artist doesn’t mean I should be treated differently.

I’m gonna write from personal experience, from emotion, from whatever the hell I’m feeling that day.

Do not hate or fear the artist in yourselves… Honor and love him do not try to possess him. Trust him as nobly as you trust tomorrow. Only the artist in yourself is more truthful than the night.