Jewel

Without a band, I'm much more free to improvise.

It's just an inch from me to you depending on what map you use.

It's like a garden: Whatever you water the most will do the best. At some point, you decide whether you'll water your career or your relationship more.

There is a pretty girl on the face of the magazine and all I see is my dirty hands turning the page.

We are loved beyond our ability to comprehend.

On my own I generally have very messy hair, wear jeans and sneakers.

I never found much comfort in overly organized religion of any sort.

I have this theory that if we're told we're bad, then that's the only idea we'll ever have. Maybe if we are surrounded in beauty, one day we will become what we see. Anyone can start a conflict. It's harder yet to disregard it. I'd rather see the world from another angle. We are everyday angels.

Telling the truth to yourself and someone you can trust are great ways to help elevate your whole emotional quality.

Dreams last so long Even after you're gone I know you love me And soon you will see You were meant for me And I was meant for you Go about my business, I'm doing fine Besides, what would I say if I had you on the line Same old story, not much to say Hearts are broken every day I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead I try to tell myself it'll be all right I just shouldn't think anymore tonight

I'm having a bad day. I am not size six. My legs are not skinny as sticks, and dammit, someone's got to pay. I'm afraid that I can't satisfy myself and that my happiness depends on someone else. I feel weak, so you're gonna take the fall. You're so shallow.

You have to realize: OK, I don't know how to solve a political problem, I don't know how to solve the pollution problem... all I know is in my own life, I need to figure out some sense of purpose, I need to figure out how to be happy... and I'm willing.

I've had mentors who were kind of the troubadour singer-songwriters, like Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and that's just what I've always liked - people who would talk real honestly about their lives and their circumstance.

We must demand more not from each other, but more from ourselves

All things change. Cultivate flexibility rather than perfection.

I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead.

We've made houses for hatred. It's time we made a place where people's souls may be seen and made safe.

What we believe as human nature in actuality is human habit.

I consider myself a product of Alaska. The love and the debt that I feel to my home state, you always want your hometown to be the proudest of you.

I don't feel like I've changed as much as radio formats have changed.

I'm a Gemini and I have a lot of different moods. Sometimes I'm very serious and introspective and pensive, but other times I'm completely goofy and girlie. So, I like my songs to cover all my moods.

Never before was it as incumbent upon every members to restate loyalty and exemplify fraternal obligation by consistent life and unimpeachable character. But these must be reinforced by a growing consciousness of the responsibilities that Alpha Phi Alpha faces in the world today, where, if ever the problems which beset us are to be solved and a way of deliverance discovered, it must be by the application of those principles upon which we are founded.

I like pressure. If I am not on the edge of failure, I'm not being sufficiently challenged.

Optimism is a choice. Cynicism isn't smarter - it's just safer.

I developed a loyal following. No one knew I was homeless.

I love touring - I don't do it as often as I should.

It's been too many nights of being with to now be suddenly without.

So what are we given? We're also given, my generation, the disillusionment of our parents.

I'm always looking for ways that I can work from home with my home studio and stay busy. This is a great way to do it. Having a home studio has made projects like this a lot easier.

Don't be made useless or idle with despair. Gather yourself around your strength for light does the darkness most fear.

Who will save your soul, if you won’t save your own?

Lend your voices only to sounds of freedom, no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from. Fill your life with love and bravery, and you shall live a life uncommon.

Writing is a really good first step toward that goal of knowing yourself.

Nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend.

We must never lose sight of the fact that we must take part in the development, not only of ourselves but of all humanity... I want you to understand that there never was or has been or will be, in the minds of the founders, including myself, the thought of any reward any notice coming to us for this experiment in brotherly cooperation and comradeship, which we initiated and which has developed, not necessarily because of any efforts of ours, into one of the best regarded organizations in the Negro collegiate world.

For now I'm just enjoying being a mom. I don't want to be more famous and more rich. I want to be a good mom.

I'd rather see the world from a different angle.

Everything is temporary if you give it enough time.

The best antidote for loneliness, hopelessness, and fear is vulnerability: sharing your secrets and talking about what shames you, what you fear.

Hard times make you bitter or make you more compassionate.

If I could tell the world just one thing, it would be that we're all OK

When you're standing in deep water And you're bailing yourself out with a straw And when you're drowning in deep water And you wake up making love to a wall Well it's these little time that help to remind It's nothing without love, love, love

We all should choose our friends carefully. I used to think that no one could know me better than somebody else, because you're inside yourself, your body, you can't see yourself. If you think like that, you surround yourself with other people who are willing to tell you who you are, which are usually judgmental people ... we should really surround ourselves with the ones that adore us and believe in the highest of us.

Reality is what you believe it to be. It's what you put your thought and energy into, because your hands physically manifest thought. So your world becomes what you feel and what you think.

I'm becoming more and more myself with time. I guess that's what grace is. The refinement of your soul through time.

I've always been a workhorse.

I’m somebody who, as a child, had a lot of insecurity about stable housing, where I was going to be living, if I was going to have a roof over my head, all those types of things. And I know the impact it can have on you psychologically and emotionally.

My whole goal is to keep my spirit intact. If that doesn't happen, none of this is worth it.

Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend.

A good love is delicious, you can't get enough too soon.

Excuse me, guess I've mistaken you for somebody else, somebody who gave a damn, somebody more like myself.

I was thinking that I might fly today. Just to disprove all the things you say... please be careful with me, I'm sensitive, and I'd like to stay that way.

Some people want fame, popularity and huge sales. I've always hoped to have a really long career. So I've tried to make each of my creative decisions and business decisions to allow for longevity. As a side effect I got really famous and really big. I didn't realize the two could go together.

It's really fun to see young kids trying to find excellence in themselves.

The things you fear are undefeatable, not by their nature, but by your approach.

I have a sneaking suspicion that all religions lead to the same place, a very unified place.

I try to give myself permission to be a work-in-progress and not have everything figured out at once. It's more manageable and takes some of the pressure off of feeling like I have to have everything right all the time.

In silence you hear who you are becoming. You create yourself.

Most of us don't spend any time knowing ourselves. We just keep reacting.

We all will be Christed when we hear ourselves say: We are that to which we pray

I don't exist without writing.

Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous; there's really nothing to lose.

I'm the classic absent-minded professor: I'm very focused on something, and meanwhile, I've left the refrigerator door open for hours.

I think being raised spending so much time outdoors was really important - while you're in it, you might not know, but now I think of the things I was thankful for.

Being part of the natural world reminds me that innocence isn't ever lost completely; we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.

You always feel better when you sing. Music touches people's hearts. You know, it doesn't go through your mental capacity, it just moves you and it will let you cry. It's worth it doing a show and when you touch a crowd and move yourself at the same

Self love is a great recurring theme, the headwaters that feed my ability to be the best version of myself in every other aspect of my life. Self worth sets the standard that life meets.

Through Love and through Beauty, we achieve immortality.

I would always encourage people of any age not to be so quick to follow other people's truths but to search and follow your own moral code and live by your own integrity, and mostly just be brave.

The savages are upon me and I feel my flesh burn beneath the teeth of their indifference.

I used to love reading when I was little, and then it became difficult and I didn't understand why. I thought, what a bummer, my passion all drained out of me. So when I found out I had dyslexia, it was like, oh, that's what it was.

But maybe if we are surrounded in beauty Someday we will become what we see

My second record I used a producer, which was frustrating in a way, because I think a lot of the punky spirit and provocative nature of the lyrics didn't come across - the music was pretty.

I get really bored if I don't have more than one thing going on.

I love playing big rooms. There's nothing like it. It's a power trip.

I love vulnerability. It's what keeps me soft and from becoming emotionally calcified.

Your life becomes what you believe.

Music has given me a career. But even if it doesn't become yours it teaches you confidence and allows you to express your creativity.

Suffering is everywhere. Don't ever think it isn't. So are miracles. Don't ever think they aren't.

I've always had a love for poetry and when I got signed to a record label I thought, 'How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry.'

Words can crush things that are unseen.

Solutions and technologies exist to provide clean, affordable drinking water anywhere in the world. These solutions will save lives, reduce financial burdens, foster peace, and relieve millions of people from worrying about their next drink of water.

In the end only kindness matters.

We all need to demand the happiness for ourselves we desire. Fight for it. Wrestle it out of the clenched fist of the world you live in

I have hundreds and hundreds of songs waiting to get on albums, but I don't know about the three-month radio tours and if I'll be interested in that. I haven't figured it out, but I will definitely be doing music, whether it is independent or with a major record label.

Show me one man who knows his own heart, to him I shall belong.

I believe in liberty and freedom for all. I believe in gay marriage.

If I could tell the world just one thing It would be that we're all OK And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful And useless in times like these I won't be made useless I won't be idle with despair I will gather myself around my faith For light does the darkness most fear My hands are small, I know But they're not yours, they are my own But they're not yours, they are my own And I am never broken

Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest of Negro Fraternities, with all of its members presumably far above the average American and having a good practical understanding of the salient factors involved in the Negro's problem, and which a membership upwards of eight thousand men, should be able to take into their hands the leadership in the Negro's struggle for status.

Amazingly, I've been sort of an anomaly in the music industry. I feel like I've been able to exist as kind of a throwback artist.

Lots of people have gone from public housing to do great things in the world and have a tremendous sense of duty to their fellow man because of it.

I don't see the world unless I see it in ink.

I guess I’m a Gemini through and through, but I’m mercurial. I get bored doing the same things.

We can't underestimate the value of silence. We need to create ourselves, need to spend time alone. If you don't, you risk not knowing yourself and not realizing your dreams.

I want love to be simple. I want to trust without thinking. I want to be generous with my affection and patience and love unconditionally. It is easier to love a person with their flaws than to weed through them. I want to love the whole person, not parts; and this is how I want to be loved.

I was really inspired while I was pregnant and I wrote a whole album for my baby. I wanted to write a kids album that didn't annoy parents. I used The Beatles 'Rocky Raccoon' as sort of a starting place for my writing.

Like every girl, I felt amazing pressure to look like the popular girls, but no one told me the popular girls were all air brushed in magazines.

Sometimes the tide is just out. But it always comes back in again. In times of severe distress, we tend to get tunnel vision and think this feeling will last forever. It will not.

I want my whole life to be a great work of art, not just my art. And that means paying attention to my entire life and trying to make sure my whole life is balanced.

All through the night I'll be standing over you All through the night I'll be watching over you And through the bad dreams I'll be right there, Baby holding your hand, Telling you everything is all right. And when you cry I'll be right there Telling you were never Anything less than beautiful. So don't worry I'm your Angel standing by.

I'm trying to be in the moment and really enjoy my pregnancy. I feel really lucky.

I get bored very easily. I have a voracious appetite and I do not feel alive if I'm repeating something I'm good at. So I'm always looking for new challenges.

I grew up bar-singing and saw all kinds of ways people tried to outrun their emotional pain. It doesn't work. You end up with the original pain, as well as new pain added on top of it from the tactics you used trying to avoid it in the first place. It's best to take a deep breath, bolster yourself, and walk through it.

We are each others angels in the way that we answer each others prayers and we can also make each others lives miserable.

If you love somebody; You better let it out; Don't hold it back; While you're trying to figure it out; Cause the only real pain a heart can ever know; Is the sorrow of regret; When you don't let your feelings show. So, did you say it, Did you mean it?

My life has been full of struggles - coming from a troubled home, moving out when I was fifteen, ending up homeless by eighteen. The one thing I always knew was being jaded and bitter was equal to letting life win.

Faith and hope are the antidote. Stay actively involved in manifesting your dreams and the world created will be one we all want to live in.

Well in case you failed to notice, In case you failed to see, This is my heart bleeding before you, This is me down on my knees These foolish games are tearing me apart Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart You're breaking my heart

I make a living with a song, and I feel honored to do something I love and believe in.

Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous, there's really nothing to lose. There's no wrong you can't make right again, so be kinder to yourself, you know, have fun, take chances. There's no bounds.

I was raised in a household where I read Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky and Kant, and I was never taught that my mind was feminine. I'm aware that my body is.

Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer. There's nothing fluffy about optimism.

Self worth sets the standard that life meets.

I have a life that I enjoy; I try and value the things that I think are worth valuing and everything else is icing. You know, it is a kick to go down the red carpet in that dress and then you go back home.

Sharing lets us feel less isolated and puts us on a path of being connected. At the end of the day, that's what we all want.

I was homeless and I was in San Diego and I started singing in a local coffee shop and people started coming to hear me sing.

No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from.

My hands are small, but they're not yours, they are my own... I am never broken.

Worry is wasteful and useless in times like these.

Live your life with love and bravery and you shall lead a life uncommon.

I know, you love me and soon you will see, you were meant for me and I was meant for you

Love is a flame neither timid nor tame.

The chief significance of Alpha Phi Alpha lies in its purpose to stimulate, develop, and cement an intelligent, trained leadership in the unending fight for freedom, equality and fraternity. Our task is endless.

Clean water is a necessity that we can no longer take for granted. Each year more people die of water related diseases than any other cause of death on this planet. With a higher rate of suffering and mortality than diabetes, cancer, high cholesterol, or war; or any two combined for that matter! An entire economy is growing around water. Those without money are suffering the most and risk severe illness from contaminated sources

What we call human nature, is actually human habit.