I think all human beings are at least a little bit Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, and many of us are downright quadrophenic.

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 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.

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.

I've never lost track of what I stand for and what I believe in. I'm proud of that.

One really important thing is to have good friends and family that will be there to help you when the hard times come. Because bad times do come, for everyone, at some point. The good part is, the bad times don't last forever.

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