Jewel Quotations

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'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.

You have a different crowd every night, so you should do a different show to suit them. I tailor the show to their mood.

Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend.

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.

I enjoy hard work; I love setting goals and achieving them.

I didn't mean to be a songwriter; I just was writing for fun, you have all day to do it. I was homeless so that's all I had to do.

Hard times make you bitter or make you more compassionate.

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.

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

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.

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

I wrote the song 'Angels Standing By'... to try and soothe myself - rock myself to sleep, basically - because I was so scared and stressed.

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

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

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

If someone is willing to help you understand your own worth when you're vulnerable, that's a very touching thing. It makes you want to help other people.

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.

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

If you write a hit song for Britney Spears, it's worth several million dollars. Just one song! And it might have taken you two hours to do it. It's like mining for gold. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of technique.

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

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

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.

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.

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,'

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.

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

Some of my favorite poets had a tremendous sense of whimsy, so it's a writing style I guess I admire.

My husband and I have kept a good balance between the work and the rest. I feel so lucky having a job, and I know so may people who focus too much on work, and their home lives suffer.

I was raised really poor and so was my husband.

I'm a happy mum. I didn't think it was in the cards for me, so I feel very blessed.

I think when kids just see well-crafted poetry, it's just obtuse to them. It's hard to relate to.

I think family mealtime is really important. There's a lot of research that shows kids are going to do better in school and have more self-esteem if you can all sit down and eat together.

Records have never really been my strong suit. I've always been a much better live act. I didn't understand the language of the studio. You sing differently in a studio. The language, the craft - it's just a whole different deal. I avoided the problem on my first record by doing a live album.

I was really intimidated. I was really timid. And so a lot of what Ang did with me was trying to get me grounded and I think that's why he had me do tai chi, just trying to get me settled.

I would love to write more children's books. There is such a high standard out there for children's books; there are really amazing writers. It is a fantastic creative outlet and such an amazing teaching tool. The thing I love about kids, too, is it is so imaginative and poetic.

My character had to be really earthy, really grounded, feminine and strong and confident,

When we're children we're told love is going to be great: Just fall in love, the rest will take care of itself - and then we fall in love and we realize, Okay, this is actually really, really hard work. This guy doesn't just tell me I'm great every day, you know?

There are a lot of things about fame that are not conducive to being curious. It's been important for me to cloister myself off.

What's great about music is it takes so many kinds of people, including me. Everybody is in a different place.

There's no wrong you can't make right again, so be kinder to yourself; you know, have fun, take chances. Those bounds.

I sort of came out at the dawn of the Internet in the mid-90s and I think it helped break my career. I think I was one of the first artists to really benefit from the grassroots swell that can happen online. I don't know if I would have broken out without it.

I've been writing lullabies since the beginning. I kind of did it for myself to help myself fall asleep when I really worried, like when I was homeless and I'd fall asleep in my car.

I've been performing on stage since I was six years old.

The writers I respect the most had an undying commitment to a vision.

The show is different every night, because I never write a setlist.

Once you are successful, there's a very seductive rhythm at work that keeps you wanting to outdo yourself. By the end of 'Spirit' I felt like I didn't want to get into that trap. It almost makes you cartoon-like.

I'm fairly specific about what I like to wear and looks are important to me, just like they are to everybody.

I hope that my life ends up being my greatest work of art, not just my music.

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.

I moved out of home when I was 15.

I love shows about creating and cooking. Sometimes they're so extraordinary, you end up setting yourself to fail.

I have this theory- that if we're told we're bad, then that's the only ideal we'll ever have.

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 tend to eat what I want, which probably isn't good.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Another day, another dollar, another war, another tower Went up where the homeless had their home.

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

Worry is wasteful and useless in times like these.

Love is a flame neither timid nor tame.

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

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

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

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.

What we call human nature, is actually human habit.

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

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.

Optimisn is a choice. Cynicism isnt smarter - it's just safer.

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

I'd sit on logs like pulpitslisten to the sermonof sparrowsand find god in Simplicity,there amongst the dandelionand thorn

We'll fight, not out of spite For someone must stand up for what's right 'Cause where there's a man who has no voice There ours shall go singing My hands are small I know But they're not yours, they are my own But they're not yours, they are my own I am never broken In the end only kindness matters In the end only kindness matters

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

everything is temporary if you give it enough time...

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'd rather see the world from a different angle.

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'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.

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.

I was turning 20 during my first record. Those decade birthdays always kind of cause me, it seems, to reflect, look back, and then look forward. I just was closing this period of my life where I was living in a car and scrambling my whole life to then signing a six-record deal with Atlantic.

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.

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.

If I could tell the world just one thing, it would be that we are all ok. And not to worry because worry is wasteful and useless in times like these.

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.