Because I'm from North Carolina, you think I'm the Andy Griffith show, or something?

I know that I've got big ears and a big forehead and that my hair sticks up, but I'm happy with myself. I'm not necessarily trying to win a beauty pageant here.

I decided to study special education and fell in love with working with individuals with autism. That's what I planned to do with my life.

The message I'll share...is that inclusion is extremely important for kids with and without disabilities.

A song can be more than words and music ... when sung with soul a song carries you to another world, to a place where no matter how much pain you feel, you are never alone.

I like to talk. I'm a terrible dancer. I love my hometown. I have freckles and oversized ears. I'm a geeks. I have tried not to hide who I am or what matters to me.

Well, fortunately we found out that the runner-up our particular year was going to get a record contract also. So it was kind of a - it was bitter sweet but it was an opportunity.

It doesn't really matter to me how I make a difference, I just wanna make sure that I do.

I know this is going to sound cheesy and like I'm trying to be Miss America, but the most important responsibility a celebrity has is to set an example and be a role model.

And I think that when I finally decided to let go and let God and allow that to happen, I became a lot more successful than I could have done if I had planned it all myself.

I went to school for special education. I always assumed when I had the opportunity I would love to try and help kids with disabilities.

Where they come in the spirit of perpetual giving - the house that love built.

Maybe home isn't a place. Maybe it's a feeling you have inside of you, being around the people who matter to you

Life, like classical music, is full of difficult passages that are conquered as much through endurance and determination as through any particular skill.

Through light, together, let us breed positivity as a lifestyle.

I am liberating man from the degrading chimera known as 'conscience'.

If I go back to the beginning, I could start it over again. I could go line by line; try and find a shorter way. I could try to make it... better.

Metaphor is embodied in language.

It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training.

A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and way of life.

Those whom we first love we seldom marry