It's a combination of melody and lyrics, not one without the other. It's a confluence of these different elements that makes something powerful.

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

Sinatra, here's a guy who plays a tough guy in all his movies, but was allowed to be vulnerable when he stepped up to the microphone.

Whoever best serves the song is going to be served by the song.

For years I've kept a list of dream projects.

It's understanding the intention of a composer that allows a producer and an arranger to make those moments speak.

You're presuming too much by using the word legacy - presuming that someone is going to care.

We used to call it recurrent airplay when someone had a hit.

Black music has increased my enjoyment of what I do. It has increased my range, my ability to reach into myself and accept myself.

A lot of my success comes from black music. It's something I'm very proud of.

There are certain people who have become better artists, but they're brilliant at marketing. I think someone who's been phenomenal like that is Madonna.

You can't make everybody love what you do, but you can know how great you feel doing it.

It's a combination of melody and lyrics, not one without the other. It's a confluence of these different elements that makes something powerful.

I have friends who've tried to break into the UK, who went back with their tails between their legs. Fortunately I've had the opposite experience.

No matter how great we get with digital formats of instrumentation, nothing really quite duplicates the real thing.

Dr. King is so inspiring, so impressive, so moving as a human being.

I'm proud of my mentors. Ray Charles is the strongest influence on me as a singer.

The Top 40 is geared toward 20 and under, not 20 and up. That's the audience I'm geared to.

The whole industry evolves around a great song.

To sing along with Stevie Wonder, you had to make your voice do things it was not accustomed to doing.

I was blown away by the control and the range that I was hearing. I'm listening to Pavarotti and thinking, What the hell have I been doing with my voice all these years?

It's an important thing to remember where you came from.

When you have great songs that are going to live longer than the composers, everything you can do to bring those different elements and nuances out, serve the song.

When I started studying for the arias it was like going into training for a heavyweight title fight.

A lot of the greatest compositions were made famous by Sinatra.

I have to be happy in the here and now because every time you start focusing on your legacy you're really setting yourself up for disappointment.

With the internet, things are so much more immediate. People taste-test things to see if they want to buy the CD.

The bigger you are, the harder they come down on you.

I kept looking to do songs that were written years ago and would live or outlive all of us, and the one thing they had in common was Sinatra.

When I was invited to sing with Pavarotti, I had about two weeks to learn Italian.

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.

Considering the amount of information we're bombarded by, it's amazing if a song can transcend time.

One song will launch you, but you don't want to be a one-song artist.

On singing in the swimming pool: "If I can move the water, I can move the people."

I think there is a human instinct to tell stories, no matter who you are or where you live.

Even Shakespeare gives you a scene off.

Kerastase and Bed Head have really good products.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter.

Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, Christ is risen, but I shall rise.

My only thought about Margaret Thatcher is the same one I had about Ronald Reagan. I hated a lot of what they did, but once in a while a country just needs a change.

Your illness is not your identity. Your chemistry is not your character.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.

Im a hairstylist I could tell you stories that would curl your hair.

Health and intellect are the two blessings of life.

If Democrats start consistently winning Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, the electoral outlook for Republicans in the future is mighty bleak.

There is something to that old saying that hate injures the hater, not the hated.

Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.

In a professional kitchen, the idea is to have your cooks not moving much while they're cooking. You want them to stay in the same spot.

From the business point of view, always encouraging the people in our company to own stock in the company, and if we're going to build something great, to have a lot of people share in the benefits of that greatness.