I wanted to write a happy song. I didn't know how.

The age thing really bugs me. Do people have more of a right to not like what I say because I'm 19?

I know what my job is: I write the songs, I sing them, I play them on the piano.

I read on the Internet that I was dead.

I don't care what people do. I don't care how people remember my albums. I do them for my own reasons.

The way I feel about music is that there is no right and wrong. Only true and false.

I was so self-critical. I still am, but it's not as bad anymore.

I'm not a control freak.

I've never been to the websites. It's a lot healthier for me to keep out of the conversations about me.

I don't want to give any advice to a 19-year-old, because I want a 19-year-old to make mistakes and learn from them. Make mistakes, make mistakes, make mistakes. Just make sure they're your mistakes.

I got all my work done to graduate in two months and then they were like, I'm sorry, you have to take driver's ed. I just kind of went, Oh, forget it.

I'm not used to not having enough time to live with the songs. Usually, if I write something, I live with it for a little while.

I really don't think anything I do is a mistake. It could be if I didn't learn from it.

Rape is the most humiliating thing that can be done to you; it's the most vulnerable that you can be. But once I realized that, I became a stronger person and faced all my fears.

Now I feel like whatever I do, no one can hurt me. I cannot be violated, I cannot be humiliated, I cannot be disregarded, I cannot be disrespected.

If I respect myself and believe in what I'm doing, no one can touch me.

What's really good is African drum music.

Everybody sees me as this sullen and insecure little thing. Those are just the sides of me that I feel it's necessary to show because no one else seems to be showing them.

I've gone through stages where I hate my body so much that I won't even wear shorts and a bra in my house because if I pass a mirror, that's the end of my day.

There aren't many poster children for cool angst. Everybody thinks it's cool if you're the bad girl.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.

I don't know if anybody wants to mix their politics with their entertainment.

Sometimes interviews are fun and good conversations, but stuff like photo shoots and appearances at places where you have to meet a lot of people - I was never really made for this kind of stuff.

My whole life, people have been saying, Why are you so angry?

I got into therapy in the fifth grade because I said in a sarcastic way that I was going to kill myself, and they didn't get it then. Nothing's changed.

I got drunk when I was five. Everybody gets drunk before they're 21.

Nothing that you do will ever feel good if you let people convince you that you have no choice.

I never went to concerts when I was a kid, so I never knew if what I was doing onstage was right.

I want to be like the patron saint of reality.

I still don't know what Episcopalian means.

The quick success was a bit strange to get used to.

I dare anybody to look at me and say I'm anorexic. I'm so totally not.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be even lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anybody or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

I caved in to what people wanted me to do. I thought that they weren't going to like me if I didn't.

I'm incredibly impressed by people who organize to achieve a goal, and believe that they can make a difference and then go ahead and do just that. I think it's incredible.

I would really like to go back to school. I would love it now.

I don't have a big thing about leaving my mark or being historic.

I have a very steadfast tendency to parent myself, to monitor my development into the person I want to be. I've tried to keep the corruption minimal.

I resent limitations. I'm going to be this way for a while.

For a while after the rape, I was afraid of my own sexuality, because I got raped right about the time when I started developing physically.

I never thought I'd be in a position where people would be talking about my sexuality and saying how good I look in underwear.

I wanted to write a happy song. I didn't know how.

Five years from now I'm probably going to look back on the things I'm doing and cringe.

For me, the best times are always going to be the most intense, the ones with the highest highs and the lowest lows.

And if I'm being honest, I don't think I have an ex-boyfriend who would have something mean to say about me.

As a person who performs on stage, it's good to be emotionally open. If you mess with someone when they are in that state, it's like you're messing with an animal when it's eating.

Because for whatever reason, even though I want to stay home all the time and be left alone, I want to tell the world who I am now.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.

Hearing my songs in public freaks me out a bit. There was one restaurant I really liked in L.A., but I had to stop going there when they started playing my music. It felt kinda awkward.