Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don't have to worry about anything.

The hardest thing to do in this business is to still be around. When music changes, when labels' resources have dried up, it becomes harder and harder to continue to make a living at this.

I just do what I do and hope it's accepted by the public at large. It's different from when Marvin Gaye and Stevie revolutionized what music was 25 years ago. Now there's all this technology that's available to everyone. It's tough to be ahead of anyone.

I write about moments, and I don't make blanket statements about anything because no one has all the answers; nobody's come up with a foolproof way to do anything when it comes to emotions.

I'm not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I'm not thinking about anything other than - I'm just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I'm just going to do it.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don't. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

I started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.