No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.
You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you'd experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.
All of my favorite people - people I really trust - none of them were cool in their younger years.
I'm not concerned with people seeing me in a certain way. Some people see me as a kid, some people see me as an adult. But I'm seriously not going to complain how anybody sees me, as long as they see me.
We don't need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.
I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.
When you're singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It's happening.
I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.
People haven't always been there for me, but music always has.
I think the perfection of love is that it's not perfect.
I am an over-achiever, and I want to be known for the good things in my life.
Relationships are like traffic lights. And I just have this theory that I can only exist in a relationship if it's a green light.
I don't want people to think of me as sexy.
I think fearless is having fears but jumping anyway.
In a relationship each person should support the other; they should lift each other up.
All you need to do to be my friend is like me.
I love the ending of a movie where two people end up together. Preferably if there's rain and an airport or running or a confession of love.
I'm intimidated by the fear of being average.
I think every girl's dream is to find a bad boy at the right time, when he wants to not be bad anymore.
Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you've got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration.
My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have.
Just because you make a good plan, doesn't mean that's what's gonna happen.
Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I've never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line's always been really blurred for me. I'll hang out with them after the show. I'll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I'll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.
Faith Hill is a big role model.
In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is.
I'm not the girl who always has a boyfriend. I'm the girl who rarely has a boyfriend.
I love the scents of winter! For me, it's all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.
Some days I totally appreciate everything that's happening to me, and some days I feel everyone's waiting for me to mess up.
Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you're crazy.
I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can't imagine going through that. If you know that's going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I'd rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?
At some point, you grow out of being attracted to that flame that burns you over and over and over again.
My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.
I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.
Guarding your heart and protecting your dignity are a little bit more important than clarifying the emotions of someone who's only texting you back three words. I've learned that from trying to figure out people who don't deserve to be figured out.
I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.
When you are missing someone, time seems to move slower, and when I'm falling in love with someone, time seems to be moving faster.
If you cry over a guy, then your friends can't date him. It can't even be considered.
I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we're raised as little girls to think that we're a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.
I'm always worried about everything. Like spiders.
I don't compare myself to anyone else; I don't make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that's okay by me.
Anytime someone tells me that I can't do something, I want to do it more.
I've never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I've only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.
I don't live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free.
I've been careful in love. I've been careless in love. And I've had adventures I wouldn't trade for anything.
There's so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it's reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She's been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there.
My mom and I have always been really close. She's always been the friend that was always there. There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn't have a lot of friends. But my mom was always my friend. Always.
I never want to change so much that people can't recognize me.
In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.
Your feelings so are important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you're heartbroken, but tomorrow you'll be in love again.
I don't like it when people who are young act like they're 40. That's taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you're so mature or whatever - I don't try to act mature. Some people might say I'm mature for my age, but it's not something I'm trying to do, you know? I'm just me.
Love always ends differently and it always begins differently - especially with me.
On 'Grey's Anatomy' I wouldn't care what I was playing - I would play a corpse, 'cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.
A lot of the jewelry that I wear are fan gifts because they're so awesome and they give me great presents.
I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I've kept that mentality. Just because there's a hurricane going on around you doesn't mean you have to open the window and look at it.
Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.
I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.
I'm a Sagittarius, and one of our major qualities is that we're blindly optimistic.
As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, 'All right, well, I'd like to headline a tour,' and then when I get there, we'll see what my next goal is.
There are no rules when it comes to love.
The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you're 16 can mirror the one you have when you're 26. Life repeats itself.
I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don't ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It's like, 'Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.'
It's human nature to not say everything that's on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We're afraid of being embarrassed.
I get really restless when I haven't worked for a day and a half. I have a recurring dream that people are lined up next to my bed, waiting for autographs and taking pictures of me!
I've always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.
I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.
I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you're not interested in them so that they'll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What's he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don't want to sign up for that.
I've never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that - of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.
I don't know how to have a normal relationship because I try to act normal and love from a normal place and live a normal life, but there is sort of an abnormal magnifying glass, like telescope lens, on everything that happens.
I've been singing Shakira songs in front of my bathroom mirror into my hairbrush forever. It's like a daily routine.
Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.
I'm very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn't choose.
People don't usually compliment your character.
My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories.
Even if you're happy with the life you've chosen, you're still curious about the other options.
As supportive as my hometown is, in my high school, there are people who would probably walk up to me and punch me in the face. There's a select few that will never like me. They don't like what I stand for. They don't like somebody who stands for being sober, who stands for anything happy. They're going to be negative no matter what.
I wish all teenagers can filter through songs instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.
I get nervous for everything - literally everything.
When you're 25 or 30, you know, you can't wear lime-green eye shadow anymore.
The only way I hear gossip is if it's big enough and loud enough for my friends to bring it up to me. Or if it's, like, a big untrue ordeal from my publicist - and she hates making that phone call!
When I am talking to people who I feel don't like me or are mean, I get really shy, and I kind of curl up personality wise.
I don't know if I could do this with the same energy, and in the same way - all the costume changes and glitter and hair and makeup - all the time. When I'm in my 50s, I kind of think I'll want to be in a garden.
I have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.
When I'm in my 50s, I kind of think I'll want to be in a garden.
My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.
I have this really high priority on happiness and finding something to be happy about.
I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.
I think that it's okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn't about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.
Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.
I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60!
My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It's when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.
When I figured out how to work my grill, it was quite a moment. I discovered that summer is a completely different experience when you know how to grill.
I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.
One element of Madonna's career that really takes center stage is how many times she's reinvented herself. It's easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It's inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable.
Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.
The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.
Here's what I've learned about deal-breakers. If you have enough natural chemistry with someone, you overlook every single thing that you said would break the deal.
I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.
I don't think there's an option for me to fall in love slowly or at medium speed. I either do, or I don't.
You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you're obsessed with yourself, and I'm not - you can become unhinged so easily.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, auditioning for Broadway was my dream.
