From when I was a kid I wanted to write. It was so important to me that I was writing my own material.

You've got the words to change a nation but you're biting your tongue

It would be sad if we lost our instinct and our courage to love and protect.

I wasn't intentionally trying to create my own path or be original, it was just I needed to say certain things and I needed to express myself, and that's how it came out.

I tried to bang down a lot of doors but Virgin were the only label who believed in what I was doing. I ended up with the label that understood what I was trying to do.

Sometimes you feel like a very small drop in this huge ocean.

I want to speak for people that may not feel like they're being spoken for at the moment. And I want to make a connection between the world around us and the charts.

Any song I have to work on longer than a day, I just leave it. It's not gonna work. Everything that's good is really instant.

I was very quiet until I got at the piano, and weekends, lunch breaks, after school, before school, I was just making music.

I'd be smiling if I wasn't so desperate. I'd be patient if I had the time.

I think people don't realize how many hours of practice goes into becoming a musician and getting better.

Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.

As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish I wish he'd stay away.

If you're aware of injustice, you can either ignore it, say there is nothing you can do about it, complain about it and not do anything, or put your energies into doing something about it.

On a night without moon or stars you can't see a thing, but you can imagine anything.

In all the arts abundance seems to be one of the surest signs of vocation.

Value yourself. The only people who appreciate a doormat are people with dirty shoes.

Women have a mother-nature and a daughter-nature; there are no women with a wife-nature. The quality of wife is an acquired character; it is a combination of mother and daughter.

The music stuff is just a hobby.