“Books have always been important to me – my mom was a first grade teacher, so I grew up reading all the time.”

No matter what size I am I love performing no matter how big or little I am! I feel good.

I feel like you can be the best role model by being yourself.

You need to be happy with who you are and, whoever that is, let your little light shine.

I was in a very dark place for a long time. It’s just so hard to have normalcy.

Music isn’t just heard, it is felt.

I’m from a small town where everybody always has something to say – you shouldn’t sing secular music, you shouldn’t do this or do that. A ton of “shouldn’ts.”

I’m thankful For the blessing And the lessons that I’ve learned with you By my side

When I’m picking songs for an album I always want a song that I can relate to and that I have experienced. There’s nothing worse than watching an artist try and sell a song that isn’t believable coming from them.

I sound the same regardless if I’m 20 pounds heavier or 20 pounds light, and I think that’s the key thing with my fans and why they continue to be loyal because I’m that type of person.

Everything changes, but beauty remains.

God will never give you anything you can’t handle, so don’t stress.

People like us we gotta stick together Keep your head up nothing lasts forever.

Even though I’m a pop singer, I really have more the life of a country singer.

The thing about Christmas is that it almost doesn’t matter what mood you’re in or what kind of a year you’ve had; it’s a fresh start.

I never said I was a ‘good girl.’ I’m not a bad girl. I’m just normal, and that’s what I’m going to be. There’s no bad girl with whips and chains that’s going to come out. I think people like me because I was myself.

Everyone is different: different shapes, sizes, colors, beliefs, personalities, and you have to celebrate those differences.

A boy has to peddle his book.

To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn’t know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in…We should be thankful we cannot see the horrors and degradations lying around our childhood, in cupboards and bookshelves, everywhere.

We were a short lived anthology of things no one else could read.

A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.

I always write the end of everything first. I always write the last chapters of my books before I write the beginning. Then I go back to the beginning. I mean, it’s always nice to know where you’re going is my theory.

Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?

I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get.