When I got to Broadway, I conducted five Broadway shows.

I've written several deeply personal songs this year, which I really love. Some of them came out of intense sadness. This has been an extremely difficult year for me.

I have a musical called Goodbye and Good Luck, based on a Grace Paley short story. I also have King Island Christmas, and there are 20 different productions of it this year.

I don't like to produce albums. I hate producing albums, as a matter of fact, because I'm an obsessed mixer and I can't leave it alone.

As time goes by, I realize that I do trust the wind. And I often write my songs for myself.

It's an interesting line that I walk. The AIDS crisis has done a lot for my songs and made them proliferate, and my songs have contributed a lot to that cause as well.

I may not be the most famous songwriter in the world, but you know a David Friedman song when you hear it. It took me a long time to appreciate that.

When my writing really started to take off was when I made a decision that I would write only what I wanted to write, and if 10 people wanted to hear it, that's fine.

Corn ethanol can help in the short term, but it has serious limitations, and none of this is going to work if we don't dramatically improve the efficiency of our cars and trucks.

I'm not comfortable singing in front of people yet. That's going to take another 100 performances.

As a person, I'm not that hopeful, but somehow the hopeful part of me reveals itself through my songs.

There is no seam between my songs and myself-they really are me. It's not like I'm performing; I'm just singing stuff that I really believe.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

I've been doing a lot of studying singing, and I'm thinking of recording an album containing all my old war horses and putting out a songbook at the same time.

I write and direct the Duke University Children's Hospital Benefit every year.

I fought for years and spent a fortune fighting and never got anywhere.

When I got to Broadway, I conducted five Broadway shows.

I'm trying to have everything that I put into the world be something that makes a difference in the way I want to make a difference.

I know a lot of people who have tremendous commercial success and they go directly for it. There's something that has always been difficult about that for me.

I was talking to my spiritual advisor. I got a letter from somebody who said that they were about to kill themselves, but they listened to a song of mine and it saved their lives.

Composition is definitely what I'm born to do, and it came last.

In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure.

I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure.

It sometimes feels like I'm not doing anything.

My first career was as a coach and a teacher.

I think of my songs as there to be something to move people emotionally.

I've been doing my big theater projects, which take years, and writing a song here and there.

I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted.

My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing.

I publish my own music. I'm creating my own songbook. It works that way for me; I'm very independent.

I wanted to produce Nancy LaMott's albums, so I created my own record company.

Songwriting is the most terrifying thing to me, because you are really laying your heart out there.

For Hunchback, we needed this live, gigantic choir. So we went to London and said, This is Disney! I need singers who can sing high D's, hold them for 18 seconds, and do it 60 times!

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

The most important problem that Turkey has is education.

I believe that our circumstances can change based on what words we read, hear, and speak.

I enjoy lifting weights, but I hate doing cardio.

No major entitlement once it has been implemented has ever been unwound.

That common cold of the male psyche, fear of commitment.

There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.

When you're on court, you just want to win. You're a competitor.

A lot of people are crazy, cruel and negative. They got a little too much time on their hands to discuss everybody else. I have a limited amount of energy to blow in a day. I'd rather read something that I like or watch a program I enjoy or ride my damn motorcycle or throw back a couple of shots of tequila with my friends.

From the time we open our eyes, we live in a Steadicam form, and the only editing is when we talk about our lives or remember things.

The only thing I miss from the sitcom format is that immediate gratification of when you're, if we're talking about comedy, of the live audience.

My love life doesn't stink; it's nonexistent.

Please clean up after your dogma.

Make yourself comfortable in everything you do.

Coaching isnt a great mystery. Its Just hard work determination and inspiration at the right moment.

I've had long hair, I've had short hair, and I've had in between hair... and its all good.