I guess it's about getting older. I know that I'm going to lose people that I love - I'm going to die myself - so everything seems to be getting somehow sweet and more important and more special and more humbling and more challenging and more terrifying all at the same time.

I've been in therapy since I was five, but music goes way, way, way, way, way beyond therapy.

If you work hard at something, you're going to find a way that you can live in this life, no matter what your handicaps are.

I know what makes me connect to my music - it is knowing that I am not alone in my feelings and my thoughts.

If I love Etta James, it's not just the voice, and it's not just the song, but it's the energy that connects me to her, so if she is strong, I can be strong, too, and if she is sad, I know I am not alone, or if she is joyous, I can connect with that joy.

There is something about live albums that I enjoy so much more than studio albums from all of my favorite artists. When I am listening to them live, I get to connect so much more to their truth than in studio albums.

My job is to work at song writing and singing and telling the truth in song writing. My job is to be courageous enough to go on stage and tell the truth, the same truth that's gone into my song writing.

I think that, being on the road, you've got your family with you, so there's no way that you can have a closer feeling to a group of people that you love than when you sit down and have a dinner or a lunch or a breakfast together.

That's the great thing about social media: you can make one move, and everybody knows about it, and I kind of like that.

I'm such an emotional performer, and my head is always like a rollercoaster, so if I'm in a good place and feeling grateful, that's when I notice that my shows come across as a lot more positive.

If I'm in a good place, then I'm really open-minded to what's being presented, but if I'm in a bad place, I'm much more closed-minded.

For any performer who's coming up, if they really want to test their psychology and how they handle themselves on stage, then coming to the U.K. as a whole is a wonderful place for that.

If I ever had to choose between having a good mind and good health with having big success, then there's no contest: I'd put my health first every time.

I don't think that Americans are ungrateful, not at all. But I do think that we are a young country, and we have a lot to learn.

We all have our ups and our downs, and it's consistent throughout all of our lives. It's not a movie: you don't get to a point where, suddenly, you're free forever - it's life.

When you love the music that you're going to play, of course you're going to do your best.

Leonard Cohen is probably the greatest lyricist for music that's ever lived, you know?

I'm a Bipolar 1, Rapid Cycler. So really easily, if I'm around people that are sick and are not medicated, and there's a lot of people going to AA that should be medicated that are really, truly mentally ill, then I end up being triggered.

One of the beautiful things about music is it gives you an opportunity to learn how to tell the truth, and it's a life-long learning process.

The only thing as a kid that really mattered to me was that I wouldn't quit. When I say 'quit,' I mean you wake up, you go to the piano, you go to whatever instrument, and you work at learning how to tell the truth.

I don't ever go and write music for an album. That's not something I do. I don't go and write music for an audience or a career; I don't do that at all. I write basically all the time. I'm addicted to it.

Etta James takes credit for writing some of the lyrics on 'I'd Rather Go Blind,' which I think are some of the most phenomenal lyrics I've ever heard. There's arguments now about who wrote it, but she always takes credit for it in her live performances.

I wrote my first song when I was four, and I played it at my piano recital.

At first, I was using my sister Susan's lyrics, as I could not write myself, only the music. And then one day, she and I had a fight, and she threatened to take away the lyrics from all the songs that I put the lyrics to, so it was that day that I began writing my first lyric to the music.

Once I finish something, if I don't feel that it's absolutely fabulous, there's no way I would ever let it be recorded, I wouldn't even present it to a producer.

I have no idea what was the first record I ever bought, but I think I asked my mom to buy me... um... a collection of Beethoven when I was a little girl because I became very addicted to his music. It might have been piano sonatas.

I really love Dinah Washington and anything live from her - she had some of the greatest jazz musicians in the whole world, and sometimes she would be with a big band, and sometimes she'd just be on stage with a muted trumpet, upright bass, and a piano.

The thing is, I'm not really a great pianist at all. But if God said I could either sing or play piano, and which would it be? I would definitely choose the piano.

The piano represents home to me. It represents a place where I can heal - the sound of it, the feel of it, the way it looks.

I worked with Mrs. Davis for four years, and then she realized, as the material started getting harder, that I had never learned to read. I was just listening as she'd play the song, and I'd play it back. When that happened, she got very upset and stopped being my teacher.

When you hear me sit at the piano by myself and do one of those super-personal, confessional songs, that's where my true voice is.

We'll be examining and auditing and reviewing all of the programs of the department and really figuring out what is the core mission and how can the federal department of education really support and enhance the role of the departments in the states.

Parents no longer believe that a one-size-fits-all model of learning meets the needs of every child. And they know other options exist, whether magnet, virtual, charter, home, faith-based, or any other combination.

I will not be deterred from my mission of helping kids in this country.

The bigger goal of giving all parents more choices is one that will have to be discussed and undoubtedly roundly debated, but we are going to have to continue to build the case. The momentum is there on the state level in many states. That's where the energy needs to be harnessed in a new way.

I need to stress that I could not be more supportive of great teachers and great teaching, no matter what kind of delivery vehicle they are teaching through. We have to support great teachers. They just have to be freed up to do what they do best.

You have to have teachers who are empowered to facilitate great teaching.

We're not proposing any shifting of funding from public schools to private schools.

The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children's schooling and education decisions.

Too many children today are trapped in schools that don't work for them.

HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality.

If politicians in a state block education choice, it means those politicians do not support equal opportunity for all kids.

All schools that receive public funding should be accountable, yes.

I support accountability.

Federal law must be followed where federal dollars are in play.

I can assure you I have never made decisions on my mother's behalf on her foundation's board.

It would be fine with me to have myself worked out of a job, but I'm not sure that - I'm not sure that there will be a champion movement in Congress to do that.

I expect there will be more public charter schools.

I expect there will be more private schools.

I expect there will be more virtual schools.