You know, your speaking voice comes back, but your singing voice you use in a different way.

So all of these things are going on that make you wake up and realize you are a mortal person. You can choose to cruise through your life, but if you do, you're going to open your eyes at some point, and it's gone.

We rob ourselves of so much by focusing on the wrong stuff. And the ability to get into the moment and deal with what is, that's the real opportunity.

So I had to just kind of go back to the hotel, take a shower, sit quiet, dig down deep, warm up, and allow myself to move into some kind of zone. And then I remembered that a lot of my favorite musical moments are not about perfection.

I jump into the process, and the record begins to gel at some point. Then I begin to get a picture of where I'm going. But it's not always something I know on the front-end.

Can you blame them? We have to filter so much information these days. But it does make it difficult for an artist. I'm 46 years old now. I've had a lot of life experience and my voice has changed. People who expect the same old me are bound to be disappointed.

When you keep the caliber of musicians very high in the band, people are going to come and go. Some of them will be people who have to try various things, it's natural.

Whenever someone leaves, the next person that gets pulled in is somebody with similar values.

Chocolate's okay, but I prefer a really intense fruit taste. You know when a peach is absolutely perfect... it's sublime. I'd like to capture that and then use it in a dessert.

You find yourself in this place where you really get to find out what you're made of, and what I found was that when I was at my time of greatest need, there were people who appeared in my life, and helped me through it.

There's nothing more fun than sitting in a circle playing with people who are really into it.

I don't live in as much fear as I used to. I'm not afraid of the music business. Life is too damn short. I know what's important, and the tasks are very clear.

You have to write badly to write at all. If it's crappy, I will rewrite it later. But it will be mine. You can hear the resonance of an artist who goes into herself.

I would step into a place of being lined up with a sense of purpose and my inner compass, and everything was going in the same direction. Then I'd get lazy and get off the track. And then things would start to fall apart, and I'd back up and get it together again.

You know, your speaking voice comes back, but your singing voice you use in a different way.

I guess the biggest thing is that I committed to a spiritual center before I do anything else. And I put some daily things in my life into practice and I maintain that, to make sure that I don't drop the ball.

Your voice is vibrant for only a certain part of your life. There are some records I've always wanted to make, and I don't know if I want to waste this time beating on the door of the charts.

Or if I have my head in the results, I can't work with what I have, because I'm trying to force something to happen. And with singing, any time you force it, you tighten up. If you tighten up, you're screwed, nothing will work.

So I really did stop and change what I saw I was about, and really try to put that principle into play as the center of everything - my friendships, my marriage, my career, my family, my way of being in the world. And that changed everything for me.

I've come to understand my role. On some level, I provide the context for them to shine. I also know my role is the steward of the songs, and the center point, the artist that the stuff all revolves around. But I really try to honor that.

What is hard to remember when you're in the middle of it is that when you get through to the other side, you always walk away with a gift. If you can stand in there and not walk away from it, you get transformed by it.

You have to listen to what resonates within your own gut. You find your direction there. Your voice comes out.

A gourmet meal without a glass of wine just seems tragic to me somehow.

And in fact, I think the more we start to worship perfection the more soul leaks out of art.

I can't even say I've begun yet, but I'm trying on the idea that there is a book in my future.

If you say that you're all about a certain something, and look back and see that the choices that you've made don't reflect that, then there's something for you to look at.

Anyway, our family went into complete crisis mode. I have two older brothers, and we rallied as a family.

That's the great paradox of living on this earth, that in the midst of great pain you can have great joy as well. If we didn't have those things we'd just be numb.

I really think that's what music and art is about. It's another way to connect to the divine. It's a real pure way of touching that deeper reality beneath our life.

When Frank the Pug is singing I Will Survive, the only reason it's funny is that Will is in that shot trying not to get angry. A shot of a dog singing I Will Survive on its own will not get a laugh.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

You're gonna have to learn to get out there in front of those cameras and hold your head up. Take charge when you're singing.

I remember him watching me through the crack of a door singing with a hairbrush. I was in front of his mirror. I think he wanted me to sing. He would get me on the table and make me sing sometimes or play the piano. He was very encouraging on that front.

But enough joking. I am singing. This is all my life.

All my songs were solo voices. Just me singing. In fact, that was the gimmick - no gimmick. Just singing straight with not too much background.

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

It was he who impressed, time and again, the necessity of singing as nature intended, and - I remember - he constantly warned, don't let the public know that you work. So I went slowly. I never forced the voice.

In so many interviews, they bring up the sexual aspect of the record. I've had some journalists say it sounds like I'm lying down in bed singing with a microphone. It gets so old!

I love songwriting. It's second to my love for singing in how I express myself.

I hated singing. I wanted to be an actress. But I don't think I'd have made it any other way.

A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don't think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time.

My father started me singing in church.

I worked on my voice for Sweet Dreams, but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.

I looked in the audience. There were no strangers. Everybody was singing and cheering and hugging. That was a beautiful picture to look at.

I have always been intrigued with singing and I actually started my career in musical comedies.

I studied German at school. I lived in Berlin for two years and had a German girlfriend for five years, so I don't find speaking German particularly difficult. Singing was slightly more difficult.

When I started really singing I was 17, 18 years old. I used to go around trying to be a singer in the Bronx. My knees would shake but I learned by doing.

You didn't hear the angels singing. It was brought down to Mother Earth, which is where it should be. And that led me to a lot of other reading.

Singing is my life. It has always been my life. It will always be my life.