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.

I was raised really poor and so was my husband.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If I'm a phenomenon, it makes me feel like I have no purpose.

In the end only kindness matters.

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

All things change. Cultivate flexibility rather than perfection.

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

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

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?

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

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

Your life becomes what you believe.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I have always been a workaholic.

Support for shelters and transitional living and housing programs is necessary if we are going to change the landscape for homeless boys and girls in America.

Life in a shelter or on the streets puts homeless kids and youth at a higher risk for physical and sexual assault and abuse, physical illness, including HIV/AIDS

Writing with privacy is paramount. You must feel free to admit to yourself your deepest, darkest secrets and true feelings.

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

We must all work together to end youth homelessness in America

Most homeless kids are on the streets because they have been forced by circumstances that cause them to think that they are safer there than in any home they once knew.

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.

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.

What I know about street outreach is that it is essential to dealing with the issue of youth homelessness.

Only kindness matters. We are God's hands.

It's important to cultivate a tolerance and patience with uncomfortable feelings. It's best to feel them.

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.

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

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

To shut down the ability to feel pain means you shut down all emotions, joy included. It makes our hearts feel small, it robs us of our joy, and really keeps us no safer.

Words can crush things that are unseen.

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

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

My intention for my life is to stay centered, and from that intention come my priorities: my son, my family, my job, my self. That then informs what kind of work I can take on. It's a balancing act, but a fun one.

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

Dreams last so long, even after you're gone

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

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

We are loved beyond our ability to comprehend.

I have been told for so many years that you can't be smart and sexy. I started to think, "Well, why the heck can't you be both?"

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

Cynicism is for lightweights.

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.