Well, I always wanted to be educated and be prepared.

And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

I just lived it and did my own thing without looking over my shoulder. I think I'm very lucky, considering when I started everything, and the fact that I have a masters in music, and I've always worked in music, and that's what I wanted to do.

I'm a big believer in education, period.

With this new album, I prepared for it a long time, and I was happy with the songs and the production. I felt that I proved myself with the first album, and with this new album, I just want to share some of my music. And that was always my feeling and my intention.

It happened in Miami, in Coral Gables, a great big ol' Cuban wedding. It was pretty intense.

I grew up in a community that was bilingual. I've done it for a while, singing in both languages.

I started in high school to be interested in music and from there, I decided to study in college. Yeah, you're right, I did start late, but luckily, because of my schooling, I picked up a lot of ground pretty quick.

Well, I always wanted to be educated and be prepared.

If you write songs and if you write music that's very sincere and very honest, it's pop music, but it is pop music with a lot of honesty and a lot of heart.

I have a bachelor's and a master's in jazz.

So, when I got the contract for my album, even though it was an English record, my manager insisted on making sure we would record in Spanish as well, and it worked out really well for me.

A real active music set, based and really concentrated on what the music's all about. That's what I'm all about - singing and a really good strong music set.

Having a college degree gave me the opportunity to be... well-rounded. Also, the people I met at the university, most of them are still my colleagues now. People I've known for years are all in the industry together.

For me, I can only do that from my own experience with people I've known and things that I've lived and experienced. That's what good pop music is all about, pop music that does reach out to people. It's very personalized and very real, honest and sincere.

I might be a Cuban American, but I'm also an Afro-Cuban American.

Oh, yeah, I've always thought of covering some of my influences like Billy Joel, Elton John, Stevie Wonder.

My style is a very universal sound, which is very close to where I grew up.

For me, there's still a lot of room to grow; I'm just happy that I have so much more to give.

There's something about prime time television and the way the song is going to come off on the air. I'm very concerned, very self-conscious about that.

This record has a lot of influences that I'd love to cover, like Marvin Gaye and Earth, Wind and Fire. Maybe I'll do some covers of my major influences during my live show.

I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice, theory, humanities. And nowadays, music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more.

And for me, it's been, not only where I learned, but the people that I met there. Most of the people that I work with are guys that, one way or another, have been associated with the university.

If there was any other place I would live, other than Miami, it would be California. It's beautiful. The weather is just gorgeous, I love being here, too.

My intention when I came into this industry was to be a musician, not necessarily a recording artist, just a musician in general. And that's the reason I went to college and got my degree, which has been great for me. It's helped me a lot with my career.

There's always something about the Tonight Show that makes me a little bit anxious, nervous, excited. But it's good. It's good. It's been real good for me. It always has helped my career and Jay and all the people here have always been great.

I grew up speaking both languages, and for me that's really important.

Travelling to different countries is a goal. I wouldn't mind playing huge places if we got an opportunity to, but it's nice to play small places too. Fish was saying yesterday that he doesn't ever want to play stadiums, or maybe he would once, he said.

I don't feel I'm a compulsive person. I multitask. I'm really well-organised, and I have lots of people to help me.

There is nothing less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.

The hardest thing for me is restraint.

I'm like a tourist when I'm in London.

It isn't that women are less ambitious, but women want to find a balance between work, love, and family.

Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Our emotions are only ''incidents" in the effort to keep day and night together.

Anybody that you put on TV five hours a week is at some point is going to say something stupid.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

I think everyone is very surprised at how 'Matrix' has become the pop culture phenomenon that it is.

The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.

I was making stickers for guys' bands. I was in the front row photographing bands, booking bands, doing all of the kind of backstage stuff, and I didn't even think for a second I could do it, and then I saw Babes in Toyland, and all that changed.

I was told by so many people that I wouldn't succeed because I was too different. Ironically, the very reason that people watch my channel and travel thousands of miles to see a show... is because it's different. God didn't send us to Earth to just blend in. We are here to share what makes us unique.

Just as God's love to us believers, his children, is unalterably the same, whatever may be the manifestations of that love; and as his peace with us is the same, however much our peace may be disturbed; so it is also with regard to our being in fellowship or partnership with him: it remains unalterably the same so far as God is concerned.

My job will not be easy but I am convinced the problems will be solved in a quicker and more efficient way if there is unity and consensus.

I'd love to do a cop film in America. That's a genre I absolutely adore.

I'm a big animal fanatic.

Galaxie 500 broke up because it was time. We broke up as a result of internal contradictions.

The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.

Sacrifice, discipline and prayer are essential. We gain strength through God's word. We receive grace from the sacrament. And when we fumble due to sin - and it's gonna happen - confession puts us back on the field.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.