My father left his piano at the house when he left, and I wasn't allowed to play it when he was there because I wasn't as good as him. So when he left, I was determined to get as good as him, and I taught myself how to play music, and I just stuck with it, and I did it all the time.

I sacrifice in my love life and my social life, but those things will be there in three or four years. This is a really important time in my life. I can't just be the girl who sang 'I Kissed a Girl.' I have to leave a legacy.

I write songs because that's the thing I chose to do. And I can't help writing them, that's a fact. Sometimes I felt as though you worked to justify your existence, but you don't; you work to exist, and vice versa, and that's it, really.

Music is what I breathe, what I love to do. It keeps me alive.

I don't have to perform to stay in the public eye anymore. I really don't. I am who I am and what I do on musical stage these days really makes no difference at all. I already have all the momentum there. I am only doing it because I love to do it.

When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.