I've never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that - of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.

I'm captivated by you, baby, like a firework show.

I'm shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town

you're an expert at sorry and keeping the lines blurry

You are the only one who gets to decide what you will be remembered for.

Believe in everything you do. Believe in your mistakes and grow from them.

No matter how bad your day is, just be grateful this day is added to your life.

I still love writing in my journal and wearing sparkly dresses and looking at old chandeliers.

People are going to judge you anyway, so you might as well do what you want.

I think every girl's dream is to find a bad boy at the right time, when he wants to not be bad anymore.

I wish all teenagers can filter through songs instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.

There was beauty in chaos, she'd just never known it before.

We need space to be productive, we need places to go to be free.

I always root for the black man, like penance for something I had not part in creating.

John Barry was my hero when I was about 13. His scores to the James Bond movies were the scores of my life back then.

Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose.

Put your head down and work hard. Never wait for things to happen, make them happen for yourself through hard graft and not giving up.

Don’t measure busywork. Don’t measure activity. Measure accomplishment. It doesn’t matter what people do as much as it matters what they get done.

When I think about 1999, I think about being a 19-year-old kid, and I think about my attitude and behavior just toward women with respect objectifying them.

My father was a screenwriter, but he was also a novelist.

As someone who worships music, I believe it can never be ugly!