It's one thing to be a fan and it's another thing to be a label.

If anyone asks me about the George Martin years I usually say I group all of that stuff together as the single greatest experience but I wasn't scared I was just really looking forward to it.

It's what everyone is after, I mean they want success and when they get it it's an incredible pressure but what you have to do is try to keep the big picture in view.

I feel pretty confident in my own ability.

Also in Norah Jones, now there's a voice that sounds and I don't mean disrespect but sounds a hundred years old that sounds incredibly experienced. It's just an exciting time.

I know acts and I'm not going to name names but these people sold ten million copies the first time and the second album sells three million and it's considered a failure and they're dropped and that's really a shame.

It's not a bad problem to have because a lot of classic acts are known for one or two songs and in their show they basically hold those songs off until the end and you sit through an hour or so of lesser known material but in our case most of the songs are well known.

At the time, we thought it was a nice way to say something unique about the group to make us different from all the other bands kicking around in London.

The first year with the success that we had and let me point out that the time frame changes depending on which decade you look at it. In the seventies acts were kind of expected to do an album a year. If you look at the Beatles they were doing three a year.

Our friends in the group Chicago, they just numbered theirs and we thought that was kind of neat but it made continuity from album to album and that was our way of doing it.

The reward is every night. The 90 minutes is such a payoff for us every night; it makes it all worth it to us. The fans who come to the shows know how much we enjoy this.

We then went through the audition process and picked a guy named Richard Campbell and he is no secret to L.A. players as he was with Natalie Cole for years and Three Dog Night.

It's one thing to be a fan and it's another thing to be a label.

I try to be careful to not just say it's a greatest hits show because we've also made efforts to keep people up to date so to speak because we continually write and record and put out albums.

I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.

Every decade has its ABBA; that's the proof that pop will always be around.

For anybody who writes, very often, when you finish an album, you are so done with it. You've been listening in minutia, in super-focus.

I do know many a band out there, because believe me, we've played with most of them, who are together because they have to be. They might not talk to each other offstage, but they realize they can earn a living by going out and keeping that music alive.

The things I write are combinations of all of the people that have been influences to me.

When people say, 'Your music was the music of the Seventies,' I say, 'So was discoteque.' The Seventies was also the highest peak of heavy metal. Pick a genre - they were all alive.

For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.

One beautiful diamond is worth more than a mountain of stones and one virtuous act of acquiescence and submission is better than an abundance of good works done for others.

As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.

I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?

All that glisters is not gold

This is suicidal... our home is the biosphere. That's a very thin layer of air, water and land where all life exists. It's fixed, it can't grow, and yet we cling to this idea that the economy can grow forever. And it must. Well, it can't.

I keep all my clothes on in House on Haunted Hill, Mary Jane's Last Dance, and The Way of the Gun.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

When I was around 9 years old, I was watching TV one day. I was looking at this commercial, with a kid in the bathtub playing with a rubber ducky or something, and I said, 'Where do those kids come from? How come they get to be on TV? I could do that stuff.'

We tend to talk, Democrats, as a party, in legislative terms.

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

I think with 'Chunky Rice,' it felt novel to me to give this emo twist on these funny animals.

My ordination in the Church of God in Christ was at age 9, and I later became a Baptist minister, which I am today.

My mom had five kids. And she came home after working three jobs, and I'd rub her feet. We'd all rub her feet. We were lucky to get any time with her.

I predict that as warm weather returns to Europe, so will the flood of Middle Eastern immigrants.

Russell Defreitas plotted to commit a terrorist attack that he hoped would rival 9/11.

I don't know if I have a technique. I'm just trying to remember the words.

The gospel is not a philosophy of repression, as so many regard it. It is a plan of freedom that gives discipline to appetite and direction to behavior.

When my brother passed away... I made a decision that I might die soon, and if I die, I want people to know who I really am.

As an actor, I've always been interested in making sure I can perform the role and the lines in the way the writer intended.

I will only do a Hollywood film when there is something special offered to me.

We forget when we're all grown up. 16 was a long time ago. It's hard to remember how freakin' difficult it is as 16! Life is not easy, and you're trying to figure stuff out.