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

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 want to establish myself as the first Eric Davis, not the next Willie Mays.

There's always going to be someone somewhere who doesn't agree with my parents' opinion of me. It can't bother you.

When I was a kid, nobody told me I was good-looking. I wish they had. I would've had a better time.

They might object to some of my opinions, but they don't object to my behavior as a judge.

I wish my daughter wasn't spending time thinking of Kim Kardashian or Rihanna.

Ones own troubles can be borne with fortitude only a monster of indifference can bear the sufferings of others with fortitude.

Sadly, I've never met Princess Kate.

When you research someone, you actually get beyond your own preconceptions and become aware of the human being other than the image. You become empathetic and sympathetic in turn.

I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers or magazines to read.

The pleasure lies not in the cookies, but in the pattern the crumbs make when the cookies crumble.

The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States' independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti.

We all love the environment, but we have placed creatures above people. A rat is a rat.

I did 'Lonely Hearts' with John Travolta and James Gandolfini. Talk about getting over your fears. These guys were amazing! Also, Cuba Gooding, Jr. is one of my favorites. We've made 3 films together. He is such a generous, giving actor.

If I lift any weights, I do it more for explosion, but I really use my body weight to build up muscle and strength.

When teachers doubt your potential, show them how wrong they truly are.