The worst pain in the world is shame. I spend a lot of time trying to not do anything bad to anyone, but you can't live your life and not hurt people.

For me, the best times are always going to be the most intense, the ones with the highest highs and the lowest lows.

I never thought I'd be in a position where people would be talking about my sexuality and saying how good I look in underwear.

My whole life, people have been saying, Why are you so angry?

I can bake. I made myself some nice French fries once. But otherwise I just eat out. Lots of salad bars.

I got drunk when I was five. Everybody gets drunk before they're 21.

I don't have a big thing about leaving my mark or being historic.

I have a very steadfast tendency to parent myself, to monitor my development into the person I want to be. I've tried to keep the corruption minimal.

Now I feel like whatever I do, no one can hurt me. I cannot be violated, I cannot be humiliated, I cannot be disregarded, I cannot be disrespected.

The way I feel about music is that there is no right and wrong. Only true and false.

As a person who performs on stage, it's good to be emotionally open. If you mess with someone when they are in that state, it's like you're messing with an animal when it's eating.

I was told so many times when I was a kid, 'I can't be friends with you, you're too intense, you're too sad all the time.' I really thought that when I made the first album that everyone would understand me, all the people who weren't my friends would become my friends.

Rape is the most humiliating thing that can be done to you; it's the most vulnerable that you can be. But once I realized that, I became a stronger person and faced all my fears.

I'm incredibly impressed by people who organize to achieve a goal, and believe that they can make a difference and then go ahead and do just that. I think it's incredible.

Our ancestors always thought of the worst thing that could happen, and that's why we're alive.

I got a lot of problems, but I'm really good at intuiting what I need to do to be happy with whatever I create. I know when to stop myself, I know when to start, I know when to leave something alone. I guess I just kind of indulge that completely, and so I just take my time.

I wrote 'Criminal' in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me.

I don't care what people do. I don't care how people remember my albums. I do them for my own reasons.

I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to.

The age thing really bugs me. Do people have more of a right to not like what I say because I'm 19?

Everybody sees me as this sullen and insecure little thing. Those are just the sides of me that I feel it's necessary to show because no one else seems to be showing them.

What's really good is African drum music.

I got all my work done to graduate in two months and then they were like, I'm sorry, you have to take driver's ed. I just kind of went, Oh, forget it.

Five years from now I'm probably going to look back on the things I'm doing and cringe.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be even lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anybody or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

I feel like I'm 100 years old. I can't tell you what I did today. I can't tell you what I did for seven years. I can't tell you. It happens so seamlessly - I'm just floating along and seven years go by.

I walk my dog at dawn because I don't like people to be around.

I had really bad obsessive-compulsive disorder. At its worst, I was compelled to leave my house at three o'clock in the morning and go out in the alley because I just knew that the paper-towel roll I threw in the recycling bin was uncomfortable, like it was lying the wrong way, and I would be down in the garbage.

I've never been to the websites. It's a lot healthier for me to keep out of the conversations about me.

I want to be like the patron saint of reality.

I dare anybody to look at me and say I'm anorexic. I'm so totally not.

I just tend to do things to myself that I don't realize I'm doing. Sometimes I bite my lip so that it splits and hurts, and yet I can't stop. And sometimes I'd play shows on the last run, I'd scratch my neck while I was singing, and I'd horrified to see these red streaks of blood after.

Nothing that you do will ever feel good if you let people convince you that you have no choice.

How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

I read on the Internet that I was dead.

If I respect myself and believe in what I'm doing, no one can touch me.

I really don't think anything I do is a mistake. It could be if I didn't learn from it.

If you want to see me cry, just come to a photo shoot.

I caved in to what people wanted me to do. I thought that they weren't going to like me if I didn't.

I don't want to give any advice to a 19-year-old, because I want a 19-year-old to make mistakes and learn from them. Make mistakes, make mistakes, make mistakes. Just make sure they're your mistakes.

I got into therapy in the fifth grade because I said in a sarcastic way that I was going to kill myself, and they didn't get it then. Nothing's changed.

I know what my job is: I write the songs, I sing them, I play them on the piano.

I never went to concerts when I was a kid, so I never knew if what I was doing onstage was right.

I resent limitations. I'm going to be this way for a while.

I still don't know what Episcopalian means.

I wanted to write a happy song. I didn't know how.

I was so self-critical. I still am, but it's not as bad anymore.

I would really like to go back to school. I would love it now.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.

I'm not a control freak.