"I didn't have a childhood."
"My career is like an artichoke. People might think that the leaves are tasty and buttered up and delicious, and they don't even know that there's something magical hidden at the base of it. There's a whole other side of me that people didn't know existed."
"I gave myself until I turned 25 to make it. And if it didn't happen, I thought I'd just try to find a nice husband."
"At my second record label, they told me and other female artists that some of us were going on the chopping block. I was 19... and it was devastating."
"It was so draining. Going to parties to rub elbows with so-and-so and act like it's no big deal, when really all I was doing was hoping I'd have the success they had."
"I'm not defined by where I came from. I never took part in the rules and hatred that sometimes go along with religion. But if my parents are happy with what they believe, then I'm happy to stay out of their way. We agree to disagree."
"I sacrifice in my love life and my social life, but those things will be there in three or four years. This is a really important time in my life. I can't just be the girl who sang 'I Kissed a Girl.' I have to leave a legacy."
"I come from a very non-accepting family, but I'm very accepting."
"I have always been the kid who's asked 'Why?' In my faith, you're just supposed to have faith. But I was always like 'why?'"
"The press is just not your friend when it comes to a marriage. That's why we didn't sell the pictures of our wedding, and we got offered millions of dollars for them, millions."
"I don't care what people say about my relationship; I don't care what they say about my boobs. People are buying my songs; I have a sold-out tour. I'm getting incredible feedback from my music."
"I think sometimes when children grow up, their parents grow up. Mine grew up with me. We coexist. I don't try to change them anymore, and I don't think they try to change me. We agree to disagree."
"I have multipersonality disorder - in a very good way, of course - when it comes to my fashion choices."
"I feel really blessed because of where I come from."
"I unfortunately still crave chicken McNuggets and bacon, which is the meat candy of the world."
"My parents are very quirky, eccentric. They have their own world."
"I'm kind of a good girl - and I'm not. I'm a good girl because I really believe in love, integrity, and respect. I'm a bad girl because I like to tease. I know that I have sex appeal in my deck of cards. But I like to get people thinking. That's what the stories in my music do."
"People don't want just vanilla. They want 31 flavors. I couldn't do what Rihanna does. I couldn't do what Gaga does. They can't do what I do."
"Honey, I am the chief of my train. If critics want to hop on board, fantastic. There's plenty of room. The KP train is fun."
"I fall in love every time. And I don't really fall in love a lot, but when I do, I fall hard."
"I've lived such a great, fantastic life already, but there's still so much more."
"I was a hop-around. I hung out with the rockabilly crew, the guys who were trying to be rappers, the funny kids."
"I wanted to be that quirky girl who writes funny songs that still have meaning."
"My personality is up and down, sassy and cheeky."
"I really like to look like a history book. I can look 1940s, I can look 1970s hippie-chic, or sometimes I'll pull that '80s Brooklyn hip-hop kid with the door-knocker earrings."