The experience of playing music at a young age really opens up one's mind to different melody in life itself, literally - like, when you've even played a recorder, or whatever, it becomes a lot easier to hear the beauty in a bird's song, or the quiet tune in a gentle rustle of the wind.

I actually think it's easier to be positive than negative, to be honest - it takes way more energy to stay mad at someone, for instance, than it does to say "i forgive you" and move on.

I really think music in school is vital. Some pivotal moments in my life were my childhood scholastic experiences with music - teachers who found out I could sing, and encouraged me, or teachers who turned me on to music or bands I hadn't yet heard.

I think having some sort of religious faith can be helpful for many people, because it kind of puts things in perspective a bit.

I do consider myself to be a positive person. I'd much rather have my energy be focused on trying to make the world a better place, than to be bitter or negative.

I think too many times people can get rigid in life, put our blinders on, get locked into one way of thinking, and forget that life has many flavors to savor.

The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.