I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

Music is my shining light, my favorite thing in the world. T get me to stop doing it for one second would be difficult!

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you’d experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

I don’t think there’s an option for me to fall in love slowly or at medium speed. I either do, or I don’t.

I spend a lot of time balancing between faith and disbelief.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

I’ve been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what’s going on in their love lives.

I have been singing randomly, obsessively, obnoxiously for as long as I can remember.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

I’m never in the same place for more than, like, three days at a time. Things can change from one minute to the next.

When you’re 25 or 30, you know, you can’t wear lime-green eye shadow anymore.

I have this fear of falling in front of large groups of people. That’s why I tend not to wear heels.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

It’s pretty intense writing about my own life, my own struggles.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

I wouldn’t wear tiny amounts of clothing in my real life so I don’t think it’s necessary to wear that stuff in photo-shoots.

If you cry over a guy, then your friends can’t date him. It can’t even be considered.

I’d like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

I go to Wal-Mart all the time. The one in my hometown of Hendersonville, Tenn., is open 24 hours, so I go there a lot to buy DVDs and stuff like that.

And, honestly, if somebody wants to criticize me for not being a trainwreck, that’s fine with me!

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, ‘Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we’ll talk.’

No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.

There are two ways you can go with pain: You can let it destroy you or you can use it as fuel to drive you.

I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is – this thing that happens to everyone, so I’ve heard.

As I grow up, the lessons I learn in love and relationships and how we treat each other are hopefully maturing – hopefully.

For me, great music doesn’t just have to fall into one category or one genre and I love appreciating all kinds of music.

Just because you make a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.

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.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

I’m typically single. I’m the girl who – I call it girl-next-door-itis – the hot guy is friends with and gets all his relationship advice from but never considers dating.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Seeing a live Kenny Chesney show, you know what you’re going to get. You know it’s going to be an all-day party.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.

I think about food literally all day every day. It’s a thing.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

My friends tease me about the fact that if someone seems bad or shady or like they have a secret, I find them incredibly interesting.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you’re supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

If there’s a pregnancy rumor, people will find out it’s not true when you wind up not being pregnant, like nine months from now, and if there’s a house rumor, they’ll find out it’s not true when you are actively not ever spotted at that house.

If you’re lucky enough to be different, never change.

People say that about me, that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like – that’s a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me.

I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.

I always have to be writing.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn’t think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it – though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, ‘I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.’

I don’t know if I could do this with the same energy, and in the same way – all the costume changes and glitter and hair and makeup – all the time. When I’m in my 50s, I kind of think I’ll want to be in a garden.

Nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review.

I really like Lady GaGa and everything she is for her fans.

I didn’t want to just be another girl singer. I wanted there to be something that set me apart.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I’ve kept that mentality. Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

When we’re falling in love or out of it, that’s when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I’m very happy to do that.

One thing I’ve tried to never do is make wish lists. I try to have a very steppingstone mentality about this whole thing, where as soon as you make one step you visualize the next step, not five steps ahead.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

There’s a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I’m always going to feel everything. It’s my nature.

There are no rules when it comes to love.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‘Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.’

You can make a board for all the goals you want in your life with the pictures on it, and that’s great, daydreaming is wonderful, but you can never plan your future.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

I love being a part of the country-music community.

Faith Hill is a big role model.

Feel good about being someone who loves selflessly. I think someday you’ll find someone who loves you the exact same way.

The only way I hear gossip is if it’s big enough and loud enough for my friends to bring it up to me. Or if it’s, like, a big untrue ordeal from my publicist – and she hates making that phone call!

When I’m getting to know someone, I look for someone who has passions that I respect, like his career. Someone who loves what he does is really attractive.

I created my MySpace page in eighth grade, because that’s how all my friends talked to each other, so I made one, too. Then, all of a sudden, my friends started putting my songs on their profiles, and then their relatives, their friends in different states did.

We don’t wish for the easy stuff. We wish for big things. Things that are ambitious, out of reach.

The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you’re 16 can mirror the one you have when you’re 26. Life repeats itself.

I try to prepare for everything beyond the extent of preparation.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it’s so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny.

My imagination is a twisted place.

‘Love Story‘ I wrote on my bedroom floor in about 20 minutes.

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can’t get bitter, we can’t get jaded.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

I go to all these photo shoots, and each time I figure out something new about myself and what I want to wear.

I’m the type of person, I have to study to get an A on the test.

I love the ending of a movie where two people end up together. Preferably if there’s rain and an airport or running or a confession of love.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism.

I don’t know how to have a normal relationship because I try to act normal and love from a normal place and live a normal life, but there is sort of an abnormal magnifying glass, like telescope lens, on everything that happens.

Time will break all of the old habits and create new ones for you, and in the process, you will try to handle this immense pain with dignity (because you’re that kind of girl). You actually will have to move on and you actually will be fine and that’s when he may actually miss how incredible and special you are.

I haven‘t had that one great love, which is good. I don’t want that to be in the past – I want it to be in the future.

I believe when it comes to love, there’s something intangible about who we are attracted to, and I don’t think I have a pattern.

I’m sick of the tabloids‘ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it.

It is possible for a woman to be a romantic, but also to be single and to be happy.

FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again….even though every time you’ve tried before you’ve lost.

I think, as far as branching out with acting, it would take something really right on the mark to distract me from music, because music is everything to me.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

All of my songs are autobiographical.

Maybe you’re not meant to fit in. maybe you’re supposed to stand out.

I can imagine it’s hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn’t know.

If you’re yelling you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‘All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,’ and then when I get there, we’ll see what my next goal is.

I am an over-achiever, and I want to be known for the good things in my life.

You can’t generalise about an entire country, but I like the energy of British men.

Don’t ever call a guy first. The thing they want the most is whatever they can’t have. It sounds really juvenile, but it works.

I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

I like to write about love and love lost because I feel like there are so many different subcategories of emotions that you can possibly delve into.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‘Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.’

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

I’m not concerned with people seeing me in a certain way. Some people see me as a kid, some people see me as an adult. But I’m seriously not going to complain how anybody sees me, as long as they see me.

You never imagine that when you say hello to someone and you fall in love, that some day you’ll have to say goodbye.

‘Mean’ is a song I wrote about somebody who wrote things that were so mean so many times that it would ruin my day. Then it would ruin the next day. And it would level me so many times, I just felt like I was being hit in the face every time this person would take to their computer.

It’s so much easier to like people, and to let people in, to trust them until they prove that you should do otherwise. The alternative is being an iceberg.

I think the tiniest little thing can change the course of your day, which can change the course of your year, which can change who you are.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.

It feels kinda weird being back in a high school cause I haven’t been in a high school for about a year. So um, it’s kinda interesting coming back, and y’know seeing the lockers, with all the signs, the handmade signs, so being in high school again is a little bit strange but in a good way.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

I’ve found that men I’ve dated who are in the same business can be really competitive. I’ve found a great group of girlfriends in the same business who aren’t competitive, but a few times guys have started comparing careers and it has been… challenging.

When I’m in my 50s, I kind of think I’ll want to be in a garden.

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

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

Most of my songs have names of people I’ve met or are dear to me. There are people who have privacy issues and about people knowing about their private life. But for me, I like to include few special names and few details about them to make the song very special to me.

I can’t deal with someone wanting to take a relationship backward or needing space or cheating on you.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

I like the app where you can make your own memes. I make memes all the time and send them to my friends.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.

I don’t believe in endorsing a product that you don’t want to endorse.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

I get really restless when I haven’t worked for a day and a half. I have a recurring dream that people are lined up next to my bed, waiting for autographs and taking pictures of me!

A development deal is where they’re giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they’ll put an album out.

My style advice to other girls is to be experimental but always have a ‘home base‘ and stick with your comfort style.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

Katie Couric is one of my favorite people.

For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

When you’re singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It’s happening.

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

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‘CSI’ or ‘Law & Order,’ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

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 like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

I’m 5’11, so when I wear heels, it’s definitely a really good view that I have. I’m, like, 6’2 when I wear heels, so I tend to wear cowboy boots a lot.

You can’t be in love with a Google search.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.

I’ve always strived to be successful, not famous.

I’ve been my mom‘s kitchen helper since I was a little kid.

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

I once went on the most grueling radio tour. Living in hotel rooms, sleeping in the backs of rental cars as my mom drove to three different cities in one day.

What makes me happy is just curling up in with my mom in her bed and watching a marathon of ‘CSI’ and ‘Grey‘s Anatomy‘ episodes with pints of ice cream.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

I’m always worried about everything. Like spiders.

My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have.

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

I have so many indie bands on my iPod. What I don’t really understand is the attitude that if a band is unknown, they’re good, and if they get fans, then you move on to the next band.

When I was younger we had a grape arbor, and my mom would go out and pick grapes and make grape jam in the sink – boil it, put it in jars, and give it away as gifts.

For me, ‘risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

I love Karlie Kloss. I want to bake cookies with her!

I try to read as much as I can. I try to read an informative article every day. I try to stay read up on our world issues.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

If somebody hurts you, it’s okay to cry a river, just remember to build a bridge and get over it.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

At some point, you grow out of being attracted to that flame that burns you over and over and over again.

Most of my fans, if you were to look on their iPods, you’d see every possible genre of music represented in some capacity.

I can’t deal with someone wanting to take a relationship backward or needing space or cheating on you. It’s a conscious thing; it’s a common-sense thing.

I’m a Sagittarius, and one of our major qualities is that we’re blindly optimistic.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

Relationships are like traffic lights. And I just have this theory that I can only exist in a relationship if it’s a green light.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

I don’t like to feel like I’m in a club when I’m in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.

Your feelings so are important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you’re heartbroken, but tomorrow you’ll be in love again.

I’m not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

My absolute favorite meal in Nashville is sweet-potato pancakes at Pancake Pantry.

In a relationship each person should support the other; they should lift each other up.

But, I’ve always loved John Mayer and I think T-Pain is brilliant.

I am alone a lot, which is good. I need that time to just be alone after a long day, just decompress. So, I go to either my house or the hotel, or my apartment, or whatever – wherever I am, I go home and I watch TV and I sit there, with my cat, and I just watch TV or go online, check my emails.

I don’t compare myself to anyone else; I don’t make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that’s okay by me.

I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that’s horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

When you say ‘control freak‘ and ‘OCD’ and ‘organized,’ that suggests someone who’s cold in nature, and I’m just not. Like, I’m really open when it comes to letting people in. But I just like my house to be neat, and I don’t like to make big messes that would hurt people.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

Anytime someone tells me that I can’t do something, I want to do it more.

I get nervous for everything – literally everything.

I think that you can love people without it being the great love.

I’ve just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans.

I’m not really that girl who dreams about her wedding day.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

I think the perfection of love is that it’s not perfect.

I’m interested in Jackson Pollock‘s kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it’s nothing, and yet it’s incredible.

I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It’s hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

I think that when you’re making your way up in the music industry, you have all these heroes and the reasons why they are your heroes. As soon as you get into the industry, your guidelines change a little bit. For me, my heroes now are great people first and great artists second.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

I don’t want people to think of me as sexy.

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

For me, when I picture the person I want to end up with, I don’t think about what their career is, or what they look like. I picture the feeling I get when I’m with them.

A lot of the jewelry that I wear are fan gifts because they’re so awesome and they give me great presents.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

Live your life like you are 80 years old looking back on your teenage years

I think I have a big fear of things spiraling out of control. Out of control and dangerous and reckless and thoughtless scares me, because people get hurt.

The longer you’re with the wrong person, you could be completely overlooking the chance to meet the right person.

I didn’t know what a stockbroker was when I was eight, but I would just tell everybody that’s what I was going to be.

When I figured out how to work my grill, it was quite a moment. I discovered that summer is a completely different experience when you know how to grill.

There are certain people who elicit a really passionate response. It’s crazy. That’s my Alexander Wang theory.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

I don’t think I’d ever make an album of just covers because I love writing my own music.