Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend.

I'm a Gemini and I have a lot of different moods. Sometimes I'm very serious and introspective and pensive, but other times I'm completely goofy and girlie. So, I like my songs to cover all my moods.

Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous, there's really nothing to lose. There's no wrong you can't make right again, so be kinder to yourself, you know, have fun, take chances. There's no bounds.

I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead.

For now I'm just enjoying being a mom. I don't want to be more famous and more rich. I want to be a good mom.

The things you fear are undefeatable, not by their nature, but by your approach.

You have a different crowd every night, so you should do a different show to suit them. I tailor the show to their mood.

Amazingly, I've been sort of an anomaly in the music industry. I feel like I've been able to exist as kind of a throwback artist.

I love playing big rooms. There's nothing like it. It's a power trip.

I'm becoming more and more myself with time. I guess that's what grace is. The refinement of your soul through time.

Records have never really been my strong suit. I've always been a much better live act. I didn't understand the language of the studio. You sing differently in a studio. The language, the craft - it's just a whole different deal. I avoided the problem on my first record by doing a live album.

Lots of people have gone from public housing to do great things in the world and have a tremendous sense of duty to their fellow man because of it.

I would always encourage people of any age not to be so quick to follow other people's truths but to search and follow your own moral code and live by your own integrity, and mostly just be brave.

I think when kids just see well-crafted poetry, it's just obtuse to them. It's hard to relate to.

It's like a garden: Whatever you water the most will do the best. At some point, you decide whether you'll water your career or your relationship more.

I was Renee Zellweger's fat doppelganger. If she ever played in a movie where she needed to be fat, apparently I could be her stunt double.

If you write a hit song for Britney Spears, it's worth several million dollars. Just one song! And it might have taken you two hours to do it. It's like mining for gold. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of technique.

My whole goal is to keep my spirit intact. If that doesn't happen, none of this is worth it.

I sort of came out at the dawn of the Internet in the mid-90s and I think it helped break my career. I think I was one of the first artists to really benefit from the grassroots swell that can happen online. I don't know if I would have broken out without it.

I'm the classic absent-minded professor: I'm very focused on something, and meanwhile, I've left the refrigerator door open for hours.

I've had mentors who were kind of the troubadour singer-songwriters, like Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and that's just what I've always liked - people who would talk real honestly about their lives and their circumstance.

I'm a happy mum. I didn't think it was in the cards for me, so I feel very blessed.

I'm not a wild and crazy person.

I was turning 20 during my first record. Those decade birthdays always kind of cause me, it seems, to reflect, look back, and then look forward. I just was closing this period of my life where I was living in a car and scrambling my whole life to then signing a six-record deal with Atlantic.

I have hundreds and hundreds of songs waiting to get on albums, but I don't know about the three-month radio tours and if I'll be interested in that. I haven't figured it out, but I will definitely be doing music, whether it is independent or with a major record label.

I have always been a workaholic.

Some people want fame, popularity and huge sales. I've always hoped to have a really long career. So I've tried to make each of my creative decisions and business decisions to allow for longevity. As a side effect I got really famous and really big. I didn't realize the two could go together.

I've always toured solo acoustic.

I consider myself a product of Alaska. The love and the debt that I feel to my home state, you always want your hometown to be the proudest of you.

Hard times make you bitter or make you more compassionate.

I hope that my life ends up being my greatest work of art, not just my music.

Most of us don't spend any time knowing ourselves. We just keep reacting.

Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous; there's really nothing to lose.

Once you are successful, there's a very seductive rhythm at work that keeps you wanting to outdo yourself. By the end of 'Spirit' I felt like I didn't want to get into that trap. It almost makes you cartoon-like.

I tend to eat what I want, which probably isn't good.

I have a life that I enjoy; I try and value the things that I think are worth valuing and everything else is icing. You know, it is a kick to go down the red carpet in that dress and then you go back home.

What's great about music is it takes so many kinds of people, including me. Everybody is in a different place.

If I'm a phenomenon, it makes me feel like I have no purpose.

I have this theory- that if we're told we're bad, then that's the only ideal we'll ever have.

If someone is willing to help you understand your own worth when you're vulnerable, that's a very touching thing. It makes you want to help other people.

Like every girl, I felt amazing pressure to look like the popular girls, but no one told me the popular girls were all air brushed in magazines.

I've been writing lullabies since the beginning. I kind of did it for myself to help myself fall asleep when I really worried, like when I was homeless and I'd fall asleep in my car.

On my own I generally have very messy hair, wear jeans and sneakers.

I have a sneaking suspicion that all religions lead to the same place, a very unified place.

When we're children we're told love is going to be great: Just fall in love, the rest will take care of itself - and then we fall in love and we realize, Okay, this is actually really, really hard work. This guy doesn't just tell me I'm great every day, you know?

I find you get out of people what you put into them.

I love shows about creating and cooking. Sometimes they're so extraordinary, you end up setting yourself to fail.

I've always had a love for poetry and when I got signed to a record label I thought, 'How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry,'

The writers I respect the most had an undying commitment to a vision.

The show is different every night, because I never write a setlist.