Rachel Platten

I didn't leave home until 27. I was an only child raised in Philadelphia by my mother and grandmother. My grandmother controlled the stove. She made a lot of potato meals - mashed potato, potato souffle, potato pancakes. When we didn't have electricity, we ate romantically by candlelight.

Success is like a lightning bolt. It'll strike you when you least expect it, and you just have to keep the momentum going. You have to strike when the iron is hot. So for me, I just kept striking and striking to polish out the sword that I was making.