It's really hard to do, but I think it's an important thing for, no matter what type of artist you are, to trust that the reason why you are given the love of being artistic is just to make you happy - it's not to make you rich and famous.

I love getting to have different food and getting to be around different people and different cultures and different ways people look at life. It's really kind of helped me open up my mind and see the world from different perspectives.

I always try and be as positive as I can and give people the benefit of the doubt because, in my own experience - seeing myself fall so hard so many times in my life and do so many things where I lost my way so many times - and then people didn't give up on me, like my husband and my family.

If I'm happy and joyous, which I have been a lot in my life, thankfully, I'm usually not at the piano writing about it.

Sometimes when people ask a lot of me, or they're not liking what I'm turning in, especially when I'm working one on one with someone, I can get really insecure.

I love 'Fire On The Floor.' It's just smouldering. I think it's gonna be a fantastic piece to perform live. It's filled with passion. It's about when someone you know is so bad for you, but you can't help it.

If I'm writing the music, and I don't feel like its really connecting inside, then I'll know there's no reason to really put a lyric on it; it's a waste, and I'll throw it.

I think that's always the hope - I mean, I can't speak for others, but I think other artists, no matter what type of medium they are using - whether it be from painting to acting to dancing, songwriting, or anything like that - I believe the desire is to get to the truth, and I think it's really hard to tell the truth.

When I was a little girl, my family was extremely close, loving and really happy, and then overnight, things just became a nightmare, and instead of them becoming a nightmare and getting better, they became a nightmare and just kept getting worse.

I wasn't really raised in a religious family.

I never want to hear about going to hell if I did something wrong. But I do use Jesus as my curve point, and I think of his teachings when it comes to how I want to treat people.

I was never really into any kind of hard-core religious structure or dogma.

I was very neurotic as a kid, but I also used to pray to God as a young kid in school. It was a form of meditation to slow my head down and not make me feel nervous.

That would be something I would stress the most to any artist - is, number one, don't ever allow, you know, success or whatever you want to call it to determine your worth as an artist or as a person. That's number one. And number two, do it because you love it.

What I do is I really enjoy and appreciate the challenge of songwriting and singing and performing and just being really, really grateful at all times. Also, I have no fear or problems with saying no and setting boundaries, you know, with the label, with my management.

There's stigmas attached to anything that makes you, in the public's eye, seem weak. So of course, you know, you're in a business where your image, and the way people perceive you, you are taught, is important.

As a kid, I hated home, and I just wanted so much to learn or do something that could take me away and keep me away forever. And then I got blessed to get to make music and meet people who wanted to work with me. And then, the next thing I knew, I was on the road, and I was gone.

With songs, it doesn't matter what song it is; every time I go out and perform it, it's like the first time I'm performing it, the first time I wrote it. If it's not, then I'm not going to do it that night.

I really cherish my time at home. As you know, I love my husband so much, but he's always doing everything for me out here to keep me rolling forward. But I don't get to do near enough for him. So when I'm at home, I like to cook for him and do some gardening - all that wife-y kinda stuff, you know?

If I don't relate to a song, I won't sing it. The thing is that if I wrote it, I'm always going to relate to it.

No matter where I go, I never write the setlist until I'm at the venue.

The transition from fan to performer to recording artist, for me, was like learning how to dive... and each board got higher and higher.

Sometimes, the songs that really affected me were not from the artist catalogue of their music, like the song 'Thunder Road' by Bruce Springsteen. I never got into any of his other music, but that song, to this day, is in my top three lyrical masterpieces of all time.

'St. Teresa' is one of my favorites. It reminds me of the importance of grace.