As you get older, your experiences become more precious. Nothing material is important to me. It's people who are precious.

When I started studying for the arias it was like going into training for a heavyweight title fight

A lot of my success comes from black music. It's something I'm very proud of.

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist

I like the simple 'I love your work' letters. You never get sick of people's appreciation. They think they're troubling you, but it's lovely people associate my songs with certain moments in their lives.

It's an important thing to remember where you came from.

When your car is about to go off a cliff, it’s a weird time to be thinking about gas mileage and drag coefficients; better to take the right control action—look out the window and steer or use the brake until you’re back on course.