I wouldn't trivialize my existence into a hashtag.

The hardest thing about writing my second album is that I had 20 years to write my first album.

I think escapism is something artists write about pretty frequently - it's something everyone can relate to, the concept of wanting something more, wanting to find solace, wanting to have something better.

I was doing some YouTube covers, and I had a decently popular blog on Tumblr.

Every time I got to play a show, even if it's already sold out, I'm so scared no one's going to come.

It's really exciting to see all those people that exist in numbers online translate into tickets and then into faces, handshakes, pictures, stories.

When you're a teenage girl, a lot of being pretty has to do with your hair.

I love films that show people in a way that's so real it's almost unsettling, and that's what really inspires me because I write about people. I write about people that I know, so I want to portray them and portray myself in a way that is unapologetic.

I feel like, if I'm going to have young, impressionable people listening to my music, then I'm going to respect that.

I put 'Ghost' online hoping to make a couple hundred bucks, but then the next day, I took meetings with five different record companies.

People are so afraid to talk about real things, but they're experiences that everyone goes through.

I'm learning slowly to not be as much of a control freak. I can't afford to be all the time, but I'm getting better at communicating. Delegating parts of my vision for other people to execute has made it an easier process for knowing what I want, and what people can handle, and what I should probably save for myself.

If I am who I am, I'm provocative, candid, and androgynous; there's nothing I can do that will make any fan think, 'I didn't expect that from her.'

I cultivated this fan base that I really didn't really understand or appreciate until I put my first headlining tour up for sale. 500- to 1,000-capacity rooms weren't an underplay for me at the time. I'd never done a tour before!

I was always running off to the city, whether it was Philly or New York, going somewhere where there was something more for me.

I'm 21 years old, and it's kind of uncomfortable for me to talk about, but I'm in the 1 percent as far as my income and tax bracket. But now that I'm here, there's no amount of money you can wave in front of my face that will make me understand depriving people of human rights.

When I was in high school, I was a bad kid and a good student.

I love Kanye West. I think he's a visionary. He's one of those people for whom I separate his personality from his artistry.

I'm not going to present myself one way all the time just because it will make me sell best.

You don't know fear until it's 7 A.M. and freezing cold on live television, and you're not sure if Justin Bieber is going to kiss you or not.

I'm used to packing up and leaving, to condensing myself into a digestible version because people don't have much time to get to know me.

You can tell if there's magic in something. When you start it, you want to finish it and you want it to be perfect. If you're not inspired, and you're working hard to pull inspiration from somewhere and make a song something it's not, then it's very contrived, and I don't like to write music that's contrived.

All the musicians I loved growing up were men. I loved Leonard Cohen, Mick Jagger. I loved Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys. Even today, I love Van McCann from Catfish and the Bottlemen and Matt Healy from The 1975.

I love Quentin Tarantino; I love Harmony Korine, Larry Clarke.