Even in my music, I am always searching for big, universal things - ways that you can sort of reach outside the norm of what you are doing.

The first time I saw E.T., the actual image of an alien, and he was so sweet-looking. I wanted him. I wanted E.T.

The things that scare you only make you better and stronger.

You can't be from Montgomery, Alabama, and not have a background in the church. It's at the core of who we are as a people.

You have to get out of your comfort zone in order to grow.

Because we all come from different circumstances, our life experiences really color how we view things.

We know longer live in a homogenous society, it is not black, white, Asian or Latin, it is a melting pot. Until we learn to assimilate and learn about other cultures, we will continue to have racism problems. Of course, there are other '-isms' as our ills. We have sexism, ageism, elitism, homophobia-ism, there are many -isms we have to overcome.