Before I was on medication, the mania was so bad that I couldn't concentrate, so although I'd feel very creative, I could never really finish a piece of work because my mind was moving so fast.

I had so much anger and judgement towards myself for my work not being up to the standard that I expected it to be, so I wouldn't allow myself to complete anything.

It's very important for me to do things like talk therapy. That's where you begin to see the walls that your illness has put up as a way to protect yourself... but of course, those walls also keep us from getting to the truth of things.

Although I take the medication, which has made a huge impact on my life in a positive way, still, honestly, when I'm a bit sick is when I'm at my most creative.

So it's a majorly important thing for young artists, as well as older artists like myself, to know that not only do we have the right to say no, but if we don't say no, we're gonna die.

Fame doesn't matter; people approving of you doesn't matter. And if it does matter, you're in store for something very difficult and painful.

'I'd Rather Go Blind' was a song I did on an album with Joe Bonamassa called 'Don't Explain,' and I've always been such a huge, huge Etta James fan.

My personality is a personality where I get really, really nervous and doubtful about almost everything, which is always a work in progress to build up my confidence a little bit more.

I'd been trying to do this since I was 15, sending out the demo tapes and doing all the things that everyone told me that I should be doing. But no deal - like, never.

If you're going to go the way of 'American Idol,' then you better be able to do what you want musically, because just going for the fame will only keep you happy for so long.

I cook stuff that I picked up from my husband's mother. I thought that would be a good way to his heart, you know. I love to cook Italian and French, also.

I learned about forgiveness, and I've reached out to others to make amends.

I don't really see myself as a success. I just don't look at it that way.

What I look at, success is about really being grateful. You wake up in the morning, and you're thankful that you could breathe because it's a beautiful planet we live on, and I know there is a lot of struggle and pain, but there is more joy.

When I'm going through something really difficult, I think it's what made me go to the piano for the first time when I was a child. I look at it as a place to pray.

I'd be a liar if I said I didn't care what people think, but I would rather have less people who like or approve of me for who I really am than a bunch more people who like or approve me for what I'm not.

I like swimming or go to the gym, but I am alone a lot, and that can get a little depressing.

Meditation is really good. I do that a lot with my bass player Bob, and we do TM: transcendental meditation.

The audiences are really great. I really love it over there. I love Europe, period. Oh my God, all the architecture and all the history and just to the way people think and live is so different.

I love being an American, and it's a beautiful country, but we are a bunch of whack jobs. We have got so much to learn.

I got into cello in the fourth grade, and I played that for years. I adored playing it. I got an opera coach when I was 12 because I really wanted to learn how to sing properly. The only proper way to sing, I thought at that age, was opera.

Usually, I use writing as a way to figure out things about me, and I get scared pretty easily about everything. I deal with a lot of depression, so I usually use it as way to find some relief from that.

I ran away at 15 to chase a guy that I met who would become my boyfriend, and he was living in L.A.

So many people that I've wanted to work with have died. I was so crazy in love with Amy Winehouse. When she died, I felt like I lost my sister all over again. I couldn't stop crying for weeks and weeks! It was horrible! She was so wonderful and so talented.

'Better Than Home,' the song, is about getting out of your hiding place and having the courage to live as loud as possible. It is about feeling the life that has been given and has been waiting for you all along.

'St. Teresa' is one of my favorites. It reminds me of the importance of grace.

Sometimes, the songs that really affected me were not from the artist catalogue of their music, like the song 'Thunder Road' by Bruce Springsteen. I never got into any of his other music, but that song, to this day, is in my top three lyrical masterpieces of all time.

The transition from fan to performer to recording artist, for me, was like learning how to dive... and each board got higher and higher.

No matter where I go, I never write the setlist until I'm at the venue.

If I don't relate to a song, I won't sing it. The thing is that if I wrote it, I'm always going to relate to it.

I really cherish my time at home. As you know, I love my husband so much, but he's always doing everything for me out here to keep me rolling forward. But I don't get to do near enough for him. So when I'm at home, I like to cook for him and do some gardening - all that wife-y kinda stuff, you know?

With songs, it doesn't matter what song it is; every time I go out and perform it, it's like the first time I'm performing it, the first time I wrote it. If it's not, then I'm not going to do it that night.

As a kid, I hated home, and I just wanted so much to learn or do something that could take me away and keep me away forever. And then I got blessed to get to make music and meet people who wanted to work with me. And then, the next thing I knew, I was on the road, and I was gone.

There's stigmas attached to anything that makes you, in the public's eye, seem weak. So of course, you know, you're in a business where your image, and the way people perceive you, you are taught, is important.

What I do is I really enjoy and appreciate the challenge of songwriting and singing and performing and just being really, really grateful at all times. Also, I have no fear or problems with saying no and setting boundaries, you know, with the label, with my management.

That would be something I would stress the most to any artist - is, number one, don't ever allow, you know, success or whatever you want to call it to determine your worth as an artist or as a person. That's number one. And number two, do it because you love it.

I was very neurotic as a kid, but I also used to pray to God as a young kid in school. It was a form of meditation to slow my head down and not make me feel nervous.

I was never really into any kind of hard-core religious structure or dogma.

I never want to hear about going to hell if I did something wrong. But I do use Jesus as my curve point, and I think of his teachings when it comes to how I want to treat people.

I wasn't really raised in a religious family.

When I was a little girl, my family was extremely close, loving and really happy, and then overnight, things just became a nightmare, and instead of them becoming a nightmare and getting better, they became a nightmare and just kept getting worse.

I think that's always the hope - I mean, I can't speak for others, but I think other artists, no matter what type of medium they are using - whether it be from painting to acting to dancing, songwriting, or anything like that - I believe the desire is to get to the truth, and I think it's really hard to tell the truth.

If I'm writing the music, and I don't feel like its really connecting inside, then I'll know there's no reason to really put a lyric on it; it's a waste, and I'll throw it.

I love 'Fire On The Floor.' It's just smouldering. I think it's gonna be a fantastic piece to perform live. It's filled with passion. It's about when someone you know is so bad for you, but you can't help it.

Sometimes when people ask a lot of me, or they're not liking what I'm turning in, especially when I'm working one on one with someone, I can get really insecure.

If I'm happy and joyous, which I have been a lot in my life, thankfully, I'm usually not at the piano writing about it.

I always try and be as positive as I can and give people the benefit of the doubt because, in my own experience - seeing myself fall so hard so many times in my life and do so many things where I lost my way so many times - and then people didn't give up on me, like my husband and my family.

I love getting to have different food and getting to be around different people and different cultures and different ways people look at life. It's really kind of helped me open up my mind and see the world from different perspectives.

It's really hard to do, but I think it's an important thing for, no matter what type of artist you are, to trust that the reason why you are given the love of being artistic is just to make you happy - it's not to make you rich and famous.

I always kind of say to people, don't believe the hype. You are never as good as what they say; you are never as bad, and remember that you do it just to make you happy and to enjoy it.