Ingrid Michaelson quotes:

It should be like a driver's license - no one can have an Instagram until they're 18. It's the wild, wild west, the internet.

Kids can be cruel enough as it is, but cyber bullying or you're on Instagram and see your friends are all somewhere and you're not there. Then it's like, "Why am I not there?" Girls are using apps to change the way their faces look so the look quote-unquote perfect and beautiful. I feel like kids these days, it's gotta be just a big ball of anxiety.

What you see online isn't real. How many likes you get on Instagram doesn't have any bearing on how good of a person you are, how good your heart is. It's all for fun; it shouldn't affect you so deeply.

My mother passed away, my marriage ended, and I moved. Those are some pretty big things to let go of. But I find that if you hold on to something too tightly, you strangle it and yourself. If you don't let go, and let things go through you, it's toxic - physically.

The older I get, the more I realize I'm becoming people's role models and that's freaky to me. That's not what you intend to do when you set out to be a musician, to be a little 14-year-old's role model.

I've never been one to get up on a soapbox and preach. I just live my life the way I live my life.

Happy is the Heart that still feels Pain

There's something about having an artistic outlet that is so important to the human mind and development. It's as important as any other subject in school. I think it should be mandatory. It's part of our genetic makeup.

If you wait for someone else's hand, you will surely fall down.

Maybe I think you're cute and funny. Maybe I wanna do what bunnies do with you, if you know what I mean.

I try to keeps things pretty light, try to make people laugh. I find it difficult to keep trying to promote myself. I know that's the whole point of it, to promote my music, but I like to use it to be funny and silly.

Everybody, everybody wants to be loved

I think just letting go is a really good thing to do in many areas of your life, songwriting included.

Being in a room with other people's energy yields such a different result. I love writing by myself still, but there's something amazing about sharing that experience with someone else.

All the broken hearts in the world still beat

I love you more than I could ever promise because you take me the way I am.

When I said I was born a feminist, I was born thinking woman are equal to men, if not stronger than men. That's the way I always was.

For as long as we can trace back human life, there's always been some sort of music - ceremonies, rituals. It's part of the human makeup.

I didn't grow up in a naked household, but nudity was not a taboo thing. My mother was an artist and there were naked sculptures and paintings all over the place.

Music to me is something that I didn't choose; it was a necessity. I grew up with music, my father is a musician. It makes me happy; it makes people happy.

I think kids who have music in their lives are more focused. They have better attention spans. They excel more in their studies. They have a better sense of self-esteem and self-worth.

That sounds really simplistic, but if I'm in an enclosed space, or my apartment, and I live very close to a park - there's something about being outside and being near things that are green.

Some of the songs I wanted to be really full, [but] there's something to be said for just a voice and a guitar

Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts. So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess, And to stop the muscle that makes us confess

Sometimes to move forward you have to let go. I figured that out through opening myself up, allowing people into my creative process. It allowed me to write songs that surprised me, and in fact, inspired me.

With Twitter and Instagram and all of these vehicles where fans can directly interact with you and get your attention, there's a little bit of an entitlement. Like, "Why won't you follow me or write me back?" Well, if I write you back, then I have to write everyone back.

When you're writing with someone else it helps you think of things you never would've thought of.