I have had the good fortune of being able to sing with many of the finest voices in the world, and for someone who loves voices as I do, this is an enormous privilege.

A career is like a house: it's made of many bricks, and each brick has the same value, because without any one of them, the house would collapse.

I live for my children, so my number one rule is I won't go away from home for more than two weeks.

More people are listening to opera, and I'm happy - everybody must be given that opportunity.

Naturally, women are drawn to a man who understands the subtlety of emotions, and they know I'm a passionate man. But the reason I try to keep myself in shape is so I can sing better, not to look good.

Criticism in good faith is good. When it's targeted solely to destruction, I'm not interested.

I always knew I would sing. I just didn't know if I would be successful or not. But I sang at school, I sang at parties, I sang at church. Everyone always asked me to sing. I'd be playing football with my friends and my parents would ask me to sing for their guests. I was never very happy about that because I wanted to play football.