My biggest blast-off hit was "You Raise Me Up." If you ever have a wedding or a funeral, it's a good pick.

The songs that I sing and the songs that I write have always just been what I feel my voice does well, and what my inspirations have been and a kind of culmination of everything.

I was the boy who liked to sing his own songs at talent shows, and I was suddenly officially uncool.

Don't give up. It's just the weight of the world.

My school life was very much a wandering experience. I was having trouble in school and I was not making a lot of friends. So coming home and actually improvising on the piano and just coming up with melodies was an escape for me.

I did not practice hours a day for eighteen years to have my success attributed to a myth.

When I started in the music business, travel became a huge part of my world, where it hadn't been at all. I visited parts of the world that I'd never been to and found that I was spending maybe 30 days at home a year.