"I was raised in Oklahoma. I was actually born in Tulsa, but I grew up in a small town on the west side of Oklahoma called Elk City on a farm, where my dad grew up, actually."
"I've been singing since I was nine or ten."
"I loved to sing and I loved to act, and I didn't want to continue opera because I wanted to act."
"By no means, I can't sing any rock and roll."
"Everyone's story is different, and we can't really be inside them."
"The 'Carousel' overture has always been one of my all-time favorite pieces of music."
"When you're pregnant, things - at least for me - get very sincere and very wholesome, and it's about family, and singing becomes about warmth."
"I think anything emotional adds to your acting and singing, no matter what it is that you go through. It will always add to it, never take away."
"I grew up on a farm."
"My degree was in opera."
"I don't ever think about the roads I didn't take because I spend too much time thinking what's ahead. I don't go backwards."
"I suppose there are a lot of reasons to be jaded or sarcastic or bitter in life, but I hang on to the reasons why life is beautiful."
"I don't want to be famous for being famous."
"It's really important that I have a personal life."
"To play a character is to inhabit the world and the life of that character."
"Some songs depend heavily on the character, but, for the most part, a great song begs for reinterpretation every time it is sung, even when in character."
"Playing characters allows me to do things I may not always do, while singing in concerts allows me to really find my own voice and grow."
"It's always hard - it's a little counterintuitive to leave your baby at any point during the infancy."
"I was able to do concerts all the way up until two weeks before I had the baby; I thought I was stopping a month ahead, but he was three weeks early."
"Everyone has these ideas, especially about the middle of the country, about people being backwards and three-toothed."
"Every part has its relief when I'm done with it."
"I feel so rich in my emotions and in my life and so grateful when I'm home and so grateful when I'm at work."
"When I've done TV and film, when it's offered to me, I loved doing it, and I would do it again, but the ins and outs of auditioning is - that's time away from my kids."
"When I was a kid, I would sing in people's living rooms and for different little family things."
"'South Pacific' has a definite heaviness that people don't realize. It's got a seriousness and a message."
