At 14, I was playing in clubs until 3 A.M. My dad was the district attorney of New Orleans and my mother was a judge, so I saw hookers and drugs but I never wanted that life.

The reasons I never set out to do a talk show is they're formulaic. People come out, tell jokes and read questions. But that's not what I do, and we built the show around my skill set.

Life is really like that: there are certain things that are wonderful and certain things that are not so wonderful and what you are going to do about it. With grace and with dignity, move through them. Deal with them.

Everything I do is part of my passion.

I sing because I’ve forgotten how to scream.

[Frank Sinatra] was an incredible artist, the best at what he did, but it never occurred to me to model my career after what he did. There was no one I modeled my career after because there was no one else who did what I did.

As you work on something, whether it's a painting or a piece of music, it's going to evolve. A relationship is like that too. I don't have to think, What can I do to spice up my marriage? Because as time goes on, she changes, I change. I'm not married to the same girl I met by the pool. I love this woman more than I loved the person I married, but just in a different way.