The most spiritual place you can be in your life is when youre being very real, when youre not allowing everybody and everything to influence your decisions and your moods, and whats morally right or ethically right.

People think they know me, but they don`t. Not really. Actually, I am one of the loneliest people on this earth. I cry sometimes, because it hurts. It does. To be honest, I guess you could say that it hurts to be me.

I love the fans and they are the reason for my professional existence. When I'm out there doing a show and I see the fans dancing and singing, that's what I love the most. It's just the greatest feeling in the world.

When you look at the consequences of climate change, at rainforest deforestation, at antibiotic resistance, these are not necessarily political issues, but rather issues that have the ability to threaten our species.

I love music in general. It's like girls and their clothes and shoes; when you love shoes, you love shoes. So, for me, I think it's a really dangerous thing to say I'm going to write the best dance song in the world.

I don't think anyone can measure up to what my father had achieved. I'm just happy to at least play some of his music, but he is really the one who was the pioneer, the one who started all this. He's really The King.

I've always been an extremist. Some of us have very addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The recovery is a day-to-day process.

Like my father, I don't want to see anyone mistreated, anything like that. I'm very racial-conscious because my father had a lot of, you know, challenges in the area of race. I'm very sensitive to that kind of issue.

My voice is unadorned. I don't try for perfection. I try to be honest and truthful and soulful with the voice I have. If I make mistakes in notes, or there are cracks in notes, I don't fix them. That's the way it is.

It's like a little folk song. I think it might've been Harry Belafonte or someone like that who did it. And "Merry Christmas, Everybody" by Slade, which is a rock group - a rock-pop group who are very big over there.

Jim Morrison tells me that people are looking at the streets while I am looking at the moon. I do not feel connected enough [with the issues] to throw stones at a policeman. I want to throw stones at the whole world.

My whole thing with parenting, even though this is my first time, I want to just put five or six objects on the floor - a trumpet, a piano, some dancing or a computer or whatever it is, and just see what he picks up.

My mother and father had so many ups and downs and stayed with each other and helped each other. My mother took in ironing and she was a waitress. My father was working in the factory and he did people's tax returns.

I come from a working-class family, and I've been working since I was 13, from babysitting to blueberry picking to factory work to bookstore work. And of course, being a mother and homemaker, the hardest work of all.

I'm not afraid of hard work. I like it! It's the other bit - the not working - I find more problematic. If I'm not busy, I just get antsy. I've been this way since I was a child. Sitting still is like torture for me.

I take my inspiration for the song writing from little experiences, not even if I've experienced them myself but say if something has made me sad, I will use that emotion. I just use everyday life and write about it.

Normal, day-to-day things inspire you to write. I try to travel and chill, and go out and enjoy the outdoors. That makes you see the real world. Not just in the studio or at concerts. I live it up as normal as I can.

I think it's important to raise your kids, start 'em early. Teaching them the values and morals, so when they get out there on their own, you know they have it. They just have to remember to use it, but they have it.

I've really been writing a lot of country songs. I used to get criticized for doing a 'Bump Grind,' then turning around and doing a gospel song. But the truth is I'm glad I have a gift that allows me to switch lanes.

You might be looking for a guy with a six pack that's 6'9 and is a lawyer that has money. You're not going to get everything. Some times you have to compromise. Maybe he's 6'2, has a four pack and is a future lawyer.

After 'X Factor,' I got loads of gigs. Then I went on holiday just after the tour and bought my Rolex in Tenerife. I needed to go through that phase - splurge and see that it's worthless - to get it out of my system.

I can go write an absolutely saccharine pop record with a really catchy lyric for another artist that could become a hit without meaning anything to me, but that's more the science laboratory, that's the other thing.

I started off doing theater as a kid, and I always played a character. I hid behind the script and was told where to go. But to actually perform as yourself is very difficult. I didn't used to enjoy it, but now I do.

Music is amazing, because you get to take it into your office or your living room or wherever you get to know it, and later you bring all those personal connections into a room with thousands and thousands of people.

A lot of women want to be married and have kids one day, but before we get there, it's so important to establish who you are, find yourself, and live in that for a minute before you become somebody's wife and mother.

Ain't nothin' better We beat the odds together I'm glad we didn't listen Look at what we would be missin' They said "I bet they'll never make it" But just look at us holdin' on We're still together still goin' strong

All of my life, actually, I had a real strong relationship with God, but I was always in the closet about it. The only distance out of the closet I really want to come there is having my tattoo or wearing my t-shirt.

I honestly try to have the approach that this is real life, this is the real world that we live in, and I don't really try to shelter [my son] from a lot of things that he's gonna see when he looks out of the window.

I don't think there are any clichés I try to avoid. As soon as I spot a cliché, I go for it. I feel like clichés are the most useful thing in songwriting. They're the tool on which you build all the rest of the song.

My feet never touched the ground. Lots of good groups with crazy and unique images. It was wild. I spent all of my time doing gigs, TV appearances, interviews, or recording. I could write a book -- and probably will.

I don't look for boyfriends, I don't really scour the awards shows for who I'm going to date, but I think love happens when you're not looking for it, and when it happens, I'm not going to be the one to overthink it.

People say that about me, that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like — that’s a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me.

People say that about me, that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like - that's a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me.

The romantic myth of the artist says that you are the Source. I have no illusion about that. Native Americans don't believe they are the Source. They have access to the Source. Endless access. But don't get confused.

A lot of people can figure out the social media aspect of it, or the merchandising aspect, or whatever and get enough momentum to start a career. To sustain it, you have to keep writing and you have to keep creating.

For a long time I've walked through this world with the desire, like in Rear Window, to look into other people's lives because I know that there is a way in which I am the same as so many of the strangers that I see.

For an athlete myself, it is especially meaningful for our country to host an Olympics. Every athlete hopes to participate in an Olympics, so I still can't believe the games of dreams is going to take place in Korea.

In San Francisco, I eat halal, which is kind of like Muslim kosher, and there's this one Thai restaurant, and it's right next to the 'Great American Hall'. I'm there all the time whenever I'm in town; that's my spot.

It's a joke to think that anyone is one thing. We're all such complex creatures. But if I'm going to be a poster child for anything, anger's a gorgeous emotion. It gets a bad rap, but it can make great changes happen.

...words are some of the most powerful and important things I know....Language is the tool of love and the weapon of hatred. It's the bright red warning flag of danger--and the stone foundation of diplomacy and peace.

I have a reputation for being cold and aloof, but I'm so not that woman. I'm passionate. I love my girls, being with my girlfriends, getting involved with issues that affect other women and children who are suffering.

Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people.

Most people have to learn the words to the National Anthem before they sing it. I learned these words when I was a child in elementary school, so this is something that's been embedded in me ever since I was an adult.

So gradually, and then I had an Italian roadster that I built, it took me five years to build it, it was stolen from me and stripped. I said, well maybe we should have another where we shouldn't steal from each other.

I have you. A lover and a friend. You are everything I need. You are the sun, the air I breathe. Without you, life wouldn't be the same. Please don't ever go away. And if you go, then don't forget to take me with you.

I had Halloween parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.

I'm a Santa Ana boy from 1940 to all my life. And Santa Ana was different only in the fact that Orange County was just small. Hell, I used to ride my motorcycle through the orange groves, and now it's tracts of homes.

There seems to be something pure in pulling from a place in time that's "innocent" and untouched by outward opinion. I wanted this album to have threads of my past to enrich the topics I wanted to address about aging.

Most of my youth I spent being obsessed with Baby Spice, so she was my favorite for a really long time. Now that I'm older, I actually really like Posh Spice the best. Nineties Victoria Beckham is perfection, I think.

Once a week, I don't eat for 24 or 30 hours. Your brain becomes very lucid about ideas. It also made me so grateful for food and for life, basically, and that's why a lot more joy is coming through our music, I think.

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