The trick is to have a career and have a family. It's like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.

I just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bell-bottoms, or patchouli-oil or bean-sprouts...it rubs me up the wrong way.

Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.

I did my time in the jail of your arms

When you say you're doing an opera, it's like when you're a seven-year-old and say, 'I'm off to Washington, Dad.' You kind of go, 'Sure. Sure you are, son.'

It's the same with men as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die.

Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains.