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.

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

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.

If we don’t do anything to change the lives of our people and our country, we live a vain life

To choose love is to reject hate.

It is the house of my dreams. My Tuscan dream! [Every Italophile's dream]

Self-pity is a death that has no resurrection a sinkhole from which no rescuing hand can drag you because you have chosen to sink.

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

For lips, I'm into mauves, and I like a little shimmer. I have this Dior lip gloss I love right now called Pearl. It's pink and has shimmer. I don't like anything overdone.

People will not receive the balm of the gospel unless they know something of the wounds that sin has made.

Love is a simple thing and a deep thing: it is an act of life and not an illusion. Art is an illusion.

The Limeys want us in even with our hastily made plans and our half-trained and half-equipped troops.

It never bothered me when people would say, 'You only win championships because you're playing with Shaq.' It bothered me when he said it.