I am happy to make money. I want to make more money make more music eat Big Macs and drink Budweisers.

Part of the reason that I moved to Los Angeles is that even though my mom introduced me to all kinds of music I really wanted to work on having my own identify on being who I am and doing what I do and seeing how people responded.

My dad is a lawyer and my mom is an artist. So growing up was exactly what it sounds like - strict household but a lot of creativity. They are so psyched that I get to make music for a living. My parents rule.

It's quite hard to have your mom as a teacher - it's like she's not necessarily a 'real teacher' for me. But she'd always teach me to really hear the music and develop my ear and to try and hear the harmonics of the piano.

Well my mom taught public school music for almost 40 years. And she's about 5 feet - and very mighty. And she would control her kids a lot by giving them the eye or the stare.

I've looked at pictures that my mom has of me from when I was four years old at the turntable. I'm there reaching up to play the records. I feel like I was bred to do what I do. I've been into music and listening to music and critiquing it my whole life.

Of course I would be depressed sometimes and my Mom would be worried about me because I would just sleep to escape. Cause I was so scared of being a musician or artist or whatever you want to call it.

I want to make sure I continue to make good music that my mom and everybody around me can be proud of.

I want to make my music and be a happy woman a good wife a good mom and one day hopefully have a child of my own.

My mom played the recorder. But not having electricity we had minimal exposure to music. As I got a little older we had Walkmans and things that were battery-powered but it would have been nice to be growing up in the iPod era. A tape only has six songs on a side.

My mom listened to the Beatles and Elvis a lot of different types of music.

Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom a musician who came from an incredibly Christian background but there was a lot of love which is really inspiring in a feminist way.

People always accuse me of being motivational in a way like it was a bad thing but that's just how I was raised. My mom raised me in a positive environment with lots of love in my heart and that reflects in my music.

New Orleans more than many places I know actually tangibly lives its culture. It's not just a residual of life it's a part of life. Music is at every major milestone of our life: birth marriage death. It's our culture.

I was very influenced by the musicals and romantic comedies of the 1930s. I admired Gene Harlow and such which probably explains why since the end of my marriage I've dated nothing but a succession of blondes.

Seeing unhappiness in the marriage of friends I was content to have chosen music and laughter as a substitute for a husband.

For me it's also - the music is equally as important. I mean I think as somebody who writes music there just has to sort of be the marriage between both.

I've always been suspicious of TV I've always found music and video to be an unhappy marriage.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

I love Wagner but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.

Music is what I breath what I love to do. It keeps me alive.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life but I have felt it.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Develop an interest in life as you see it the people things literature music - the world is so rich simply throbbing with rich treasures beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.