When I was seven, I had been very vocal about wanting to be an actor. And my mom decided that we would try it out for a couple weeks and come to L.A. from Sacramento.

I was home-schooled, was always very close with my mom and was very straight-laced and square. I was never the rebellious one, and I never threw hissy fits.

I was listening to a lot of Norwegian black metal and death metal. There's a great history to Norwegian black metal. That music is very dark and violent, but it's also beautiful.

I'm learning with the older that I get that some feelings are just universal and that I'm not the only one who hates their hair or their life at times.

It's really hard to see yourself and to recognize that you are a human being like everybody else. You just think everybody's judging you.

Sometimes I laugh with my parents, and sometimes I yell at them, and both are therapeutic.

For me, the dumbest rule is that you can't chew gum in school. For some reason, chewing gum for me gets my brain going.

I usually get my lyrics when I let my mind wander, when you're not really awake, but not yet fully asleep. I keep an open notebook by my bed and then just write whatever comes to me.

I want more awareness of humanity in this world.

I'm so used to swimming with the piranhas. And they're really not that bad.

It's very scary to allow the world to see you.

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

When you discipline a child you prepare them for a responsible and accountable adulthood.

I'm not saying my mother-in-law is fat - because she is of reasonable size, and I care about her and her self-image.

All real change requires risk. You must take risks every day of your life. You must get up each morning and ask...: What can I do that is different?

Why does the writing make us chase the writer? Why can't we leave well enough alone? Why aren't the books enough?

As much as I love music, in my mind, photography is what makes me the happiest - that's for sure.

The fairest blossoms of pleasantry thrive best where the sun is not strong enough to scorch, nor the soil rank enough to corrupt.

It is the University's function to turn out well-balanced persons with an understanding of themselves and of their place in life.

If everyone waited to do something good until they had purely unselfish motivations, no good would ever get done in the world. The point is to do it anyway.