I'm like 6'2 when I wear heels, so I tend to wear cowboy boots a lot.

I love hugging people. I still hug everybody in my meet-and-greet lines.

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 have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

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

No matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it.

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

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 I was 8 years old, it mattered what my favorite singer said and wore and expressed opinions about.

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.

When I go to a restaurant, yeah, I know that a line is probably going to form in front of the table, but didn't I always wish for that? Yeah, I did.

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.

Nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review.

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 always have to be writing.

Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you've got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration.

My imagination is a twisted place.

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.

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.

The song 'Innocent' is a song that I wrote about something that really, really emotionally impacted me.

I don't live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free.

When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it's been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can't stop thinking about.

Here's what I've learned about deal-breakers. If you have enough natural chemistry with someone, you overlook every single thing that you said would break the deal.

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.

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

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.

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

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don't get me.

The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that's powerful.

If I'm gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That's how it works.

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

Writing 'We Are Never Getting Back Together' was one of the most hilarious experiences I have ever had in the studio because it just happened so naturally.

I'm always worried about everything. Like spiders.

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.

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I've learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience.

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.

I don't mind being pale. In high school, it seemed like everybody cared about being tan all year round, but I haven't really thought about it since then. I don't go to a tanning bed, and I get bored when I lay out. I put sunscreen on when I'm in the sun, and sometimes I get tan, but I don't really think about it very much.

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

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.

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.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.

There's so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it's reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She's been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there.

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.

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.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, 'If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.'

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

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I've never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line's always been really blurred for me. I'll hang out with them after the show. I'll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I'll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

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 cap myself when I shop; I don't like to spend extravagant amounts on clothes. But, I do get lent clothes for events, it's scary to wear something so expensive, but I feel really pampered.

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.

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

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

I've been a huge fan of Chris Martin forever; it'd be awesome to work with him. He's really kind, and he's been really encouraging when we've met.

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.

I've been singing Shakira songs in front of my bathroom mirror into my hairbrush forever. It's like a daily routine.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I'm fully behind.

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

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.

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.

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.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

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

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can't imagine going through that. If you know that's going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I'd rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

I think I've developed, as many people do, this sense of, 'Don't say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.'

I'm a songwriter. Everything affects me.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

For everything I do, I think about a 6-year-old girl and her mom that I saw at my concert last night. I think about what those two individuals would think if I were at a club last night. I never want to be arrested, and I never want to get a DUI, those are my moral values.

'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.

When I listen to a song, I don't say, 'Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.' I'm thinking, 'That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.'

I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.

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

If you're trying too hard to be the girl next door, you're not going to be.

I love Wiz Khalifa.

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

One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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 always been really, really aware of my insecurities - really, really aware. I never developed that thick skin that keeps you from letting things get to you.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

I became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends when I was 12.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 don't have big security guards. I don't have an entourage.

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.'

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

When you are missing someone, time seems to move slower, and when I'm falling in love with someone, time seems to be moving faster.

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.'

People like music when they're in love, but they don't need it as much. You need music when you're missing someone or you're pining for someone or you're forgetting someone or you're trying to process what just happened.

I can say I'd honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I've written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

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.

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

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

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. 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.'

I was never a boy magnet at school. There was always the girl all the guys liked and wanted to date, but it was never me.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.

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.

I don't really know that much about love, it turns out.

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

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.'

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.

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.

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

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

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

People haven't always been there for me, but music always has.

I didn't always have 14,000 people wanting to hang out with me on a Saturday night.

I've never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn't feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you've got to work as hard as them.

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

When I get on a roll with something, it's really hard for me to put it down unfinished.

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

I've always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks - you learn craft, you learn structure, all that - as you go.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind - like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature - that gets in the way of writing great songs.

My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

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.

I've made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I'm allowed to write my own music.

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I've had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.

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

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

I'm intimidated by the fear of being average.

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!

One element of Madonna's career that really takes center stage is how many times she's reinvented herself. It's easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It's inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you're not interested in them so that they'll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What's he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don't want to sign up for that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some days I totally appreciate everything that's happening to me, and some days I feel everyone's waiting for me to mess up.

Love is the one wild card.

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

I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music 'made it' the same way. It's all different. There's no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.

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.

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.

Faith Hill is a big role model.

I never write about the road. I never write about hotels or anything like that.

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

People don't usually compliment your character.

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

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

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.

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 wish all teenagers can filter through songs instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.

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 someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it's cool that happens.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism.

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.

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 don't like to feel like I'm some fragile package that has to be shipped by high-priority mail and handled with white gloves.

I have this really high priority on happiness and finding something to be happy about.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone's singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that's very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

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

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 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.'

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

I think Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks would be the coolest duet partners. I look up to them so much for their work ethics.

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

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.

My dad is a Chatty Cathy, the social butterfly; friendly; knows everybody in the whole world by six degrees; tells me that every performance is the greatest he's ever seen, every new outfit is the coolest. Constant cheerleader.

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.

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

I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60!

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.

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

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

I put out one album one week, and I'm already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

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.

Nashville is my home, and the reason why I get to do what I love.

A lot of people ask me, 'How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?' It's because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they're gonna say no to you, at least they're gonna be polite about it.

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.

I don't have a type. I don't have a specific kind of human being. It's just kind of an X-factor of sorts. Everybody I've ever dated has been a case-by-case situation.

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

I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.

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

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we're raised as little girls to think that we're a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

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 second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

I get nervous for everything - literally everything.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

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.

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.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

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

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don't recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

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.

I've always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.

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.

All of my walls are covered with framed pictures of my friends.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

When I'm in management meetings when we're deciding my future, those decisions are left up to me. I'm the one who has to go out and fulfill all these obligations, so I should be able to choose which ones I do or not. That's the part of my life where I feel most in control.

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.

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.

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.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.

When you say, 'I spent my summers at the Jersey Shore,' people always say, 'Oh, really?' They think of the TV show. So I just say, 'A cute little harbor town in New Jersey.'

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

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.

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

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

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I've met.

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.

I love making buckwheat crepes with ham, Parmesan cheese, and a fried egg on top. It's my go-to breakfast.

I think that it's okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn't about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.

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

'Love Story' is actually about a guy that I almost dated. But when I introduced him to my family and my friends, they all said they didn't like him. All of them!

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

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.

My mom and I have always been really close. She's always been the friend that was always there. There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn't have a lot of friends. But my mom was always my friend. Always.

Rebellion is what you make of it. When you've been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.

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.

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

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

When I am talking to people who I feel don't like me or are mean, I get really shy, and I kind of curl up personality wise.

On 'Grey's Anatomy' I wouldn't care what I was playing - I would play a corpse, 'cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.

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'm not the girl who always has a boyfriend. I'm the girl who rarely has a boyfriend.

As supportive as my hometown is, in my high school, there are people who would probably walk up to me and punch me in the face. There's a select few that will never like me. They don't like what I stand for. They don't like somebody who stands for being sober, who stands for anything happy. They're going to be negative no matter what.

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

I think everyone should approach relationships from the perspective of playing it straight and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Until he establishes that this is a game. And if it's a game, you need to win. The best thing to do is just walk away from the table.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone's singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person. That's the only way I can find an explanation for why 55,000 people would want to come see me sing.

I'd like to think you don't stop being creative once you get happy.

I have so many playlists full of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.

I've been careful in love. I've been careless in love. And I've had adventures I wouldn't trade for anything.

There are so many emotions that you're feeling, you can get stifled by them if you're feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment - one simple, simple feeling - and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

'The Story of Us' is about running into someone I had been in a relationship with at an awards show, and we were seated a few seats away from each other. I just wanted to say to him, 'Is this killing you? Because it's killing me.' But I didn't. Because I couldn't. Because we both had these silent shields up.

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 leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

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.

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

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

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.

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they're part of a family, not just a tour.

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

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'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.

When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, auditioning for Broadway was my dream.

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

I have a lot of friends who do what I do. Either they're actresses or singers or things like that.

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

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

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

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

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

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

All of my songs are autobiographical.

So many girls come up and say to me, 'I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn't even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I'm obsessed.' That's the coolest compliment to me.

All you need to do to be my friend is like me.

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.

My audience has really become a very diverse group of people. It's not just 15-year-old girls. That's kind of what allows me to write from all the different places I want to write from.

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

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.

I was from a small town, and nobody really expects you to leave, especially before you graduate. That doesn't happen.

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.

I've never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

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.

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

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

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I'd just write.

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

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

There's room for role models who make mistakes.

I think fearless is having fears but jumping anyway.

I'm a girls' girl. I have guy friends, but the problem with having guy friends is, like, I always get linked to them, and they'll end up in a slideshow of people I've apparently dated on the Internet.

I've seen my friends take someone back after they've cheated because they fit perfectly.

I felt like my favorite writers have almost musical hooks in their work, whether it's poetry or a hook at the end of a chapter that makes you want to read the next one. And I think that my favorite writers definitely have something musical about what they do, in saying something so relatable and universal and so simple.

I never want to change so much that people can't recognize me.

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

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!

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

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.

There are no rules when it comes to love.

All of my favorite people - people I really trust - none of them were cool in their younger years.

Guarding your heart and protecting your dignity are a little bit more important than clarifying the emotions of someone who's only texting you back three words. I've learned that from trying to figure out people who don't deserve to be figured out.

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 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.

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

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

Katie Couric is one of my favorite people.

I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don't know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.

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

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

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.

Love always ends differently and it always begins differently - especially with me.

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

One of the things people don't really recognise about the similarities between country and hip-hop is that they're celebrations of pride in a lifestyle.

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

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.

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

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.

Part of me feels you can't say you were truly in love if it didn't last. If I end up getting married and having kids, that's when I'll know it's real - because it lasted.

I'm always afraid of failing. I have to quiet that fear if I'm going to get up in the morning.

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.

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

Even if you're happy with the life you've chosen, you're still curious about the other options.

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

Your next clue will be in the spot where you hear red…