"When I performed at 'Open Mic U.K.' I had this connection with the audience that I'd never felt before, and I loved it. It was my first big thing, and looking out into the crowd... was just amazing."

"My mom's a concert pianist, so she started teaching me when I was around seven. When I was eight, I started writing my own songs, and kinda started putting piano and singing together. But I'm trained classically, which is a big influence on me, I think."

"I would love to work with Paolo Nutini because he is so soulful and an amazing songwriter."

"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."

"I had no desire to be famous I just wanted to make the greatest music ever made. I didn't want anyone to know who I was."

"Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously."

"The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.… Bodies never lie."

"I find motion, literally, is where ideas come from. It's almost like a built-in rhythm section. The contents of the songs are about change, and a lot of that stuff happens when you're on tour, and you wake up and you're in a different place and you start thinking about where you're going and where you've been."