Not everybody is perfect, and I don't think we should be looking for perfect people.

For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it's doom and gloom and you have to spend millions of pounds on marketing and this and that, you have this amazing thing now called fan power. The whole world is linked through a laptop. It's amazing. And it's free. I love it. It's absolutely brilliant.

I have very good advice to give to kids this age, which is, you shouldn't listen to your mum or dad and you just have to work it out for yourself. And the reason I've taken the age range down this year, and I never would have done it 10 years ago, is what I've seen with the success of Willow Smith. You don't have to be so cutesy anymore.

I've never bought a Dylan record. A singing poet? It just bores me to tears. I've got to tell you, if I had 10 Dylans in the final of 'American Idol,' we would not be getting 30 million viewers a week. I don't believe the Bob Dylans of this world would make 'American Idol 'a better show.

The secret of my success is that I make other people money. And, never, ever, be ashamed about trying to earn as much as possible for yourself, if the person you're working with is also making money. That's life!

You didn't beat the compotition you crushed the compotition!

I do a couple of hundred press-ups a day but I haven't been to a gym in years.