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.

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

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.

When I work, a lot of times I have to lose weight, and I do that, but in my regular life I was not eating right, and I was not getting enough exercise. But by the nature of my diet and that lifestyle - boom! The end result was high blood sugars that reach the levels where it becomes Type 2 diabetes. I share that with a gajillion other people.

I love to make songs out of some of those shadows - you know, some of the things you lie awake thinking about, social anxieties and romantic insecurities and all that stuff.

I struggle with my training sometimes. The thing I look at is if you keep getting up and moving forward, you'll be successful. That's the way I've lived my life. I'm not going to stop doing something because somebody says it's time. I'm going to stop it when my body says it's over or the fans say, 'we're done watching you.'

Why are cancer patients so hard to buy for? This question always puzzles me. When people are healthy, things are so simple, including gift buying. A jaunt to the local mall or a day in front of the TV watching QVC can be just enough for all the loved ones on your list.