Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they’re stuck in that safe place.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

If I could give you information of my life, it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do In His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing.

I enjoy working with complicated equipment. A lot of my things started just with a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out sounds very complex and rich.

When you face a ‚performance‘ that might provoke the ‚I’m scared‘ response, choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God. It’s more fun than ‚Dancing with the Stars!‘

I do put a lot of God in my music, but not because I’m super religious. There are a lot of demons in my music, too. I acknowledge both.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

I don’t dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it’s gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin‘ White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It’s connected to where you are today.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

Think off-center.

Life is a matter of really tough choices.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

We were poor, but we smiled.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth… That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

I own a ’66 Jaguar. That’s the guitar I polish, and baby – I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

I wish all teenagers can filter through songs instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

It’s important that we invest in America – literally. The terrorists wanted to destroy our economy, and we can’t let our system fall apart. We also have to invest in one another.

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody’s life.

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

My life is my message.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

There’s not much time to unwind, but you know what, it’s because I love what I do. I look forward to the season. I look forward to playing games. It doesn’t ever feel like work.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

I leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

There are some hurts that we experience that can be forgiven but we won’t forget them.

You might be tough, but you can only be so tough for so long, you know what I mean? The brain can only take so much damage. The body can only take so much damage.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

We love things we love what they are.

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself.

I listen to music all day every day. I can’t not listen to music. It’s kind of scary how much I listen to music, but it’s what I love, and it’s all I care about, so I’m good with it.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.