When I listen to gospel singers pouring their heart out to God, it's the act of pouring their hearts out that interests me.

We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this -the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you.

My main interest is just to work with people who have beautiful, interesting, emotive voices; I'm not too concerned whether someone is famous.

It's almost like a sign of mental illness to base your self-worth on the opinions of complete strangers, you know?

The people who get more fame, who get more money, more often than not they are miserable, insecure and on anti-depressants. It's strange that everyone keeps buying into this idea that more success is good, that more fame is good, that more money is good. Yet, we look at the people who have more success, more fame, more money and they're miserable.

You could almost say that throughout human history there are people who can either foresee consequences or who are capable of looking for information and predicting the consequences will happen, but the vast majority of people won't respond to climate change until their city is underwater, food supply is disrupted or everyone around them is dying of zoonotic disease. It's almost like someone dealing with an addiction, like you hope that the person can overcome the addiction before the addiction kills them.

I may be a lifelong 'downtowner,' but Central Park really is the most amazing and the most beautiful part of New York City.