To come home and share life experiences with friends is the key to what makes me feel really alive.

No matter whether you are black or white, man or woman, gay or straight, Christian, Muslim, or Jew, we all share the same emotions, the same human condition.

Being sent away to boarding school at seven is as great an inspiration as any songwriter could have - to be taken away from one's family and locked away for 10 years. It does create an incredible intensity of emotion.

Sometimes, reading my own media, the negativity can upset me, but I just deal with things on a positive basis. I mean, I have up to 20,000 people singing my words back to me on a nightly basis - they share my hopes and fears, and they relate to my own life experiences. Life can be pretty isolating, but that connection is always amazing.

Honestly if men are given a choice, we'll choose everything.

I don't know how to write without thinking what people would want. You don't know whether they want you to be black or white, so you kind of get a gray, something in the middle.

I think the things that make me excited are only best when they're shared with people.