I don't go to record stores to look at my albums, but it's always a thrill to see them.

Listen to the Bee Gees and you can learn to be a great writer.

I was a pop-music junkie. My parents were into Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. They weren't too excited when I had Aretha or the Stones pumping.

When I look at myself, I'd like not to have hair on the top of the ceiling.

I looked a little pasty. But hey, at least I didn't wet myself!

The thing that's tricky is sometimes the best voices - just because someone hits the big notes and sounds amazing - it doesn't necessarily mean they make the greatest artists.

I have breakups that I can credit to every song. In my twenties, I picked people who would create that dysfunction and drama, so I could draw upon it.

Songwriters tell the truth.

Some of the best songs that artists perform year after year are ones they hated.

I felt like I got more comfortable on "Idol" when I just started being myself and not trying to be what I thought I had to be.

Look at someone like Ke$ha. I wouldn't say she's got the most rangy, incredible voice, but she's got a thing. She stands for something, and people are buying into that.

without presence of love -heart is virgin within vast eternity

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

There are very serious forms of, and reactions to, sibling victimization.

Who, I ask you, can take, dare take, on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?

I think one of the most immoral things is college football and basketball, where everybody is making money except the players.

I'd be foolish not to take some of opportunities that are coming my way. We all know this can go away at any moment.

The word 'freedom' means for me not a point of departure but a genuine point of arrival. The point of departure is defined by the word 'order.' Freedom cannot exist without the concept of order.

So, regardless of what they do, we have to play like we’re capable of playing. That’s a greater challenge in itself, but that’s really what we’re after.

Expand your references, and you'll immediately expand your life.

How do you restart something that had never been turned off?