I mean, it takes a large entourage to put on a tour. You can't have 'em sittin' around.

I intend to keep writing Christmas songs. There's still a lot more about Christmas that can be captured and feel like old-time Christmas. A lot of the traditions haven't been explained in song.

I mean, it takes a large entourage to put on a tour. You can't have 'em sittin' around.

I now have a home recording studio, which I can operate entirely on my own, as well as a portable version of the same which allows me to record anywhere I like and simply swap out the hard drives for use in the home studio.

Country radio certainly widens the boundaries of what I can do. Other artists may do something more edgy that gets on radio and that opens the door for me to be more edgy, I think.

I wanted to be the perfect artist. I'd do three hours of media interviews a day, going to every radio station I could squeeze in. I'd sign autographs after the show until everybody left.

I use computers for email, staying current with my own website as well as finding important information through other websites. I also use it for creating MP3 files of new music I'm working on.

I just keep my head down and work hard on what I do.

I'm one of those people that thinks things happen for a reason, and you just have to look for the reason.

The truth is, however rich people get, they hate paying tax. Some live abroad for a year, or years at a time just to avoid it. Bizarre really - desperate economic migrants are driven to leave their homeland because of poverty; tax exiles are driven overseas by their wealth.

Im one of those people that thinks things happen for a reason and you just have to look for the reason.

Social Security has been effective for 70 years; prior predictions of its demise have been totally overstated.

A good designer has a lot in common with a good researcher. Both hunt for excellence and perfection. And you have to really focus on the details, and you don't really know what the final result will be before you have it.

What I find is really interesting is the Ear-Nose-Throat doctor thing, which I know would take a lot of work and education, but it's something that really interests me, because it's something that helps people who've had the same problems as me, with the whole hearing and nose congestion and problems with your voice.

The moon is essentially gray, no color; looks like plaster of Paris or sort of a grayish beach sand.

I don't want any romantics to go into the military. I'm not a pacifist. I think we need a military, and the better one we have, the better off we are. I don't want kids going in there thinking that it's John Wayne on Iwo Jima. That's not healthy.

With great power comes great responsibility.

If I had terminal cancer, I had a few weeks to live, I was in tremendous amount of pain - if they just effectively wanted to turn off the switch and legalise that by legalising euthanasia, I'd want that.

I am certain that the United States next year, under a new president - regardless whether it's Obama or McCain - will present an ambitious program promoting renewable energies and energy efficiency. Europe could quickly fall behind.

I was never the kind of person who cared much what people thought about me.

You sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.

I didn't want my last chapter to be the guy who sits at the piano and sings love songs.

What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

Habits begin as offhanded remarks ideas and images. And then layer upon layer through practice they grow from cobwebs into cables that shackle or strengthen our lives.

You can't gaze in the crystal ball and see the future. What the Internet is going to be in the future is what society makes it.

In some respects, inside information is a form of financial steroid. It is unfair: it is offensive; it is unlawful; and it puts a black mark on the entire enterprise.

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

You get a bad review with a novel, and it hurts. But I imagine if you get a bad review with a memoir, it hurts more because you can always say, 'Well, they didn't like my characters,' but when you're the character, it's like, 'Oh, yeah, they actually didn't like me.'

The only infallible rule we know is that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.

Chicago seems a big city instead of merely a large place.

Modern society is a biological disaster masquerading as progress.

Liberal democracy has endured because its institutions are designed for handling morally hazardous forms of coercive power. It puts the question of how far government should go to the cross fire of adversarial review.

You need a director, a script, and a role to justify a risk.

Happiness is the only thing worth fighting for in your life.

America thrived in the 20th century because we made high school free. We sent a generation to college. We cultivated the most educated workforce in the world.