"When I was 16, I was very frustrated all the time. I felt like nobody understood me... School was stressful, working was stressful, and it's a really tough time for girls to be friends... I felt like I was always in a rush to get somewhere when I had no idea where that was." — to Seventeen Magazine
"Where do I begin? Shoulder pads, parachute pants, acid-wash jean jackets, stirrup pants, big hair. All of it was awful." — to Seventeen Magazine
"They were literally picking things up out of the puddles and throwing them at me, and I just stood there, on my own. No one was with me. I didn't have any friends. People would push me around, say they were going to beat me up after school, chase me. It was miserable, my whole schooling, miserable. I tried to be friends with people, but I didn't fit in. So I kept to myself." — to Elle Magazine
"What I've noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it's so wonderfully fair." — from her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
"I would change schools two, three times a year. That was probably the roughest part about it all…. [I got] beat up in the bathroom, beat up in the hallways, shoved into lockers. You know, just…for the most part, man, you know, just bein' the new kid." — to 60 Minutes
"If you can face the bullying at school and come through it stronger, that is a lesson for life." — to BBC
"I was very tiny...I spent most of my time stuffed into lockers. Thank god for cell phones, or I'd still be in there." — to Entertainment Weekly
"I was bullied and it's hard, you feel like high school's never going to be over. It's four years of your life and you just have to remember the person picking on you has their own problems and their own issues!" — toE! News
"I got beaten up by a lot of people when I was younger. I was a bit of an idiot, but I always thought the assaults were unprovoked. It was after I first started acting and I liked to behave like an actor, or how I thought an actor was supposed to be, and that apparently provoked a lot of people into hitting me." — to Parade Magazine
"People called me Olive Oyl, Lightbulb Head, and Fivehead, because my forehead was so big." — to GQ Magazine
"I had the worst high school experience ever. I went to a very mean school and was bullied like crazy… If I could go back and tell my 14-year-old self anything it would be, ‘Don't worry. You're going to be doing exactly what you want to be doing and those people who are a***holes now are still going to be a***holes in 20 years. So let it go!" — to The UK Mirrior
"I grew up in Tennessee, and if you didn't play football, you were a sissy. I got slurs all the time because I was in music and art . . . I was an outcast in a lot of ways . . . but everything that you get picked on for or you feel makes you weird is essentially what's going to make you sexy as an adult." — to The Ellen Show
"Bullying became something I needed to write a song about. 'Who's Laughing Now' was honest. Kids really did pull my chair out from under me, they did throw stones at my head. The bullying was never horrific; I've never been beaten up, for instance. Sometimes the words hurt more than the bruises. But I had the most amazing mum and dad and family I could go home to. Not every kid does."— to The Daily Mail
"It's kind of crazy. When I do go up around where I used to live [in Baltimore], you still see the same people who were picking on me. They're still around, busing tables or whatever, probably still acting the same way. They'll try to talk to me and I'm thinking, 'Yeah, why are talking to me now? You were picking on me then.'" — to Yahoo Sports
"I've never had issues with popularity. I was always a popular guy...I've always has friends and loved ones and everything, so it wasn't like, 'Oh man, I gotta fill some void that was left there by high school.' I had a great experience."— to AV Club
"What nineteen-year-old Virginia boy doesn't want a wide-hipped, sarcastic Greek girl with short hair that's permed on top? What's that you say? None of them want that? You are correct." — from her book Bossypants
"I remember me and my friend, when we were in high school, we always used to steal clothes. I'll always remember the one time we got busted. It's always stuck with me... We had to give them our names and they were basically like, 'Because you're so young we'll just ban you from the store." —to BET.com
"I was a nerd in those days. Outsider, like the kid that played the clarinet in the band and in orchestra, which I did." — to The Huffington Post
"I'd eat my lunch in the nurses' office so I didn't have to sit with the other girls. Apart from my being mixed race, my parents didn't have money so I never had the cute clothes or the cool back pack." — to Daily Mirror