You're an island no matter what you do. I think it's very dangerous to use popularity as your identity in life. So you have to really know who you are inside, the core person, and follow what is true rather than follow what is hype.

I never smile unless I mean it.

Success sometimes can really bite you in the shorts.

Romance is alive and well in America, but the 50 percent who can't make it work fail because of selfishness. It gets down to that. You can't oversimplify it because every situation is so complex.

You know, I always wondered what it would have been like to just go to school, play football with the guys and go to the prom. Just like a 'regular person.'

Yes, I have my standpoint, but I try to follow the life of Christ and he was very non-judgmental. It's not my position to judge. It's God's position to judge.

You always draw from your roots. I'm influenced by everything I hear and see, and that includes music today, but obviously I go back to my early influences: Stevie Wonder, Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, Ohio Players, Average White Band. Those kind of artists are what I look to. When I hear that stuff on the radio, I turn it up!