I was probably five years old or four years and I would listen to "White Christmas," and I just thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. The musicianship and his voice and the melody of that song; it's almost like I wish it wasn't a Christmas song because I wish that you were allowed to listen to it all year.

I realize I have made a lot of mistakes and done things wrong. I've done things I wish I could have done in another way. I didn't come in with the same kind of desperation that I may have had on the first or second record. I didn't come in thinking, 'Oh God, please. I hope this does well because I have nothing else and I worked so hard at this.'

Christopher Hitchens is perhaps the greatest orator ever. He's such a famous atheist.

I look at my little ones and I love them so much. I think to myself, "By God, if my son is gay, it's not that he was turned or learned into it. My son, his soul, the way he was born ... this is him.

As I've gotten older and the world has gotten far more complicated .

On social media and [in person] I hear stories of how a song like "Home" helps. Whether it's a guy overseas coping with missing his family or something deeper and terribly dramatic. Somebody once told me that ["Home"] is the song they listen to when they go to the cemetery to visit their child that passed away. It gives them hope. At the end of the day, that's all what I want to offer people.

I don't want to be the flavor, the passing thing that the girls scream at. I think that it's more important for me, honestly, that the guy who gets dragged to the show, you know, looks at his wife and says, thank you, that was great and tells his buddies.