I spent my whole career playing it safe, being a gentleman, never doing anything controversial.

I just want to say that dreams do come true. Don't ever give up on your dreams. Sometimes it just takes a little bit longer for some of us.

You have to give love to get love.

I've been influenced heavily by great soul artists. I see myself as a soul singer. I sing from my soul - I write from my soul.

I don't like labels, but I do have blue eyes and I'm soulful, so what am I going to do?

I write songs like "The Sweetest Love." Of course I'm a little cheesy. Love is cheesy. Love is corny. But it's also the greatest feeling in the whole world.

Some people go to college. For me I studied music my whole life. That was my college.

I really try to wake up with my music the same as I do with my life, and that is with no expectations. I just feel what I feel that day and follow it.

My songs don't play on pop radio; they play on black radio.

I was seven years old the first time I saw Michael Jackson. That changed everything.

I grew up in a Hollywood family with money, so money is not the reason I make music. I'm as Hollywood as it gets. Not internally but externally - that's my bloodline.

On the fifth day, they told my parents I was on the bottom of the chart, and there was nothing else they could do.

Women are powerful and dangerous.

I had to do the book because there was an unauthorised biography which didn't tell it like it was.

gardening is a madness and a rapture.

I don't mean to talk so much about screenplay writing. Who wants to talk about screenplay writing? I've taught it and I felt like a charlatan because what I was teaching I probably couldn't do.

Your strongest ally or your greatest teacher may be sitting within reach, unbeknownst to you.

Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.

Eating and exercising should be conscious decisions.

I may not be the strongest guy or the most well armed, but you can put me in a room with a pencil and a piece of paper and I can kill anybody.

People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.