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 really like Lady GaGa and everything she is for her fans.
I'm the girl who -- I call it girl-next-door-itis -- the hot guy is friends with and gets all his relationship advice from but never considers dating.
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.
Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone's singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.
The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.
I don't like to feel like I'm in a club when I'm in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.
I'd like to think you don't stop being creative once you get happy.
I've never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I've wanted the music to do that.
I've been a huge fan of Chris Martin forever; it'd be awesome to work with him. He's really kind, and he's been really encouraging when we've met.
When I'm in my 50s, I kind of think I'll want to be in a garden.
I think the perfection of love is that it's not perfect.
My imagination is a twisted place.
So many girls come up and say to me, 'I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn't even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I'm obsessed.' That's the coolest compliment to me.
I've always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.
I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music 'made it' the same way. It's all different. There's no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.
I love dresses, and I've definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.
I think Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks would be the coolest duet partners. I look up to them so much for their work ethics.
I was never a boy magnet at school. There was always the girl all the guys liked and wanted to date, but it was never me.
You can't generalise about an entire country, but I like the energy of British men.
I've found that men I've dated who are in the same business can be really competitive. I've found a great group of girlfriends in the same business who aren't competitive, but a few times guys have started comparing careers and it has been... challenging.
I've had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it's not what I look for when I'm seeing someone.
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?
I never write about the road. I never write about hotels or anything like that.
I've made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I'm allowed to write my own music.
You can't be in love with a Google search.
I'm never in the same place for more than, like, three days at a time. Things can change from one minute to the next.
For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.
I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you're supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.
If I'm gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That's how it works.
Just because you make a good plan, doesn't mean that's what's gonna happen.
I've seen my friends take someone back after they've cheated because they fit perfectly.
If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don't stop, don't put it down.
I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.
I try to read as much as I can. I try to read an informative article every day. I try to stay read up on our world issues.
If I think too hard about a relationship, I'll talk myself out of it.
A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.
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.
Part of me feels you can't say you were truly in love if it didn't last. If I end up getting married and having kids, that's when I'll know it's real -- because it lasted.
My head's never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch 'CSI' or 'Law and Order,' where I have to follow the crime. If I can't turn my head off during that, I know I've really got a problem.
Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.
The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that's powerful.
Don't ever call a guy first. The thing they want the most is whatever they can't have. It sounds really juvenile, but it works.
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.
When you're 25 or 30, you know, you can't wear lime-green eye shadow anymore.
I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What's the point?
It's so much easier to like people, and to let people in, to trust them until they prove that you should do otherwise. The alternative is being an iceberg.
My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.
Nashville is my home, and the reason why I get to do what I love.
I go to Wal-Mart all the time. The one in my hometown of Hendersonville, Tenn., is open 24 hours, so I go there a lot to buy DVDs and stuff like that.
I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don't recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.
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.
I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.
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 think I've developed, as many people do, this sense of, 'Don't say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.'
Most of my fans, if you were to look on their iPods, you'd see every possible genre of music represented in some capacity.
I can imagine it's hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn't know.
As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.
I'm not really that girl who dreams about her wedding day.
Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, auditioning for Broadway was my dream.
My dad is a Chatty Cathy, the social butterfly; friendly; knows everybody in the whole world by six degrees; tells me that every performance is the greatest he's ever seen, every new outfit is the coolest. Constant cheerleader.
People don't usually compliment your character.
I didn't know what a stockbroker was when I was eight, but I would just tell everybody that's what I was going to be.
I've been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what's going on in their love lives.
There are so many emotions that you're feeling, you can get stifled by them if you're feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment -- one simple, simple feeling -- and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.
I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don't know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.
If you're trying too hard to be the girl next door, you're not going to be.
I don't have big security guards. I don't have an entourage.
When I listen to a song, I don't say, 'Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.' I'm thinking, 'That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.'
I've always strived to be successful, not famous.
I became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends when I was 12.
I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.
I'm interested in Jackson Pollock's kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it's nothing, and yet it's incredible.
I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.
I'm sick of the tabloids' saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don't like it.
I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.
I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it's a better way of telling the stories.
I can say I'd honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I've written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.
It's pretty intense writing about my own life, my own struggles.
I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn't say in real life.
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.
I'd like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!
The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.
A development deal is where they're giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they'll put an album out.
But when I hear a great song, I can't help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.
All of my songs are autobiographical.
I've got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.
I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I'd just write.
I always have to be writing.
If you're yelling you're the one who's lost control of the conversation.
Love is the one wild card.
For some reason, I'm really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.
A lot of the jewelry that I wear are fan gifts because they're so awesome and they give me great presents.
For me, great music doesn't just have to fall into one category or one genre and I love appreciating all kinds of music.
I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It's just funny.
I believe when it comes to love, there's something intangible about who we are attracted to, and I don't think I have a pattern.
In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I'm always going to feel everything. It's my nature.