When I picked up my guitar, I spent the first day learning the chord E, the second day A, then B7, and all of a sudden, I could play the blues.

The thing to remember when you're re-recording pieces from the past is that you have to have respect for the original performances, recordings, and arrangements.

There's very little you can do these days about having any impact at a launch for a record unless you keep it very secret, because communications are so immediate, and YouTube and everything else kind of spoils the party.

I've played football with George Best, the greatest footballer that ever lived. That doesn't make me a footballer. And I've sung a duet with Pavarotti. That doesn't make me an opera singer. I can write and I have a story to tell, but I'm not going to make a career out of it.

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success.

I probably have a hidden issue, because before 'La Misma Luna' in 2007, I hated working with kids. But after that, I learned so much about how to handle a kid that I liked it. And then came 'Instructions Not Included,' and it was like, 'OK, now I think I've got it.' Life just kept bringing me projects with kids.

I have always been fascinated by the human mind, conscious and unconscious - that is what writing and reading is about, too. The why of your life and the why of your choices and the what has happened that you know and the what that you don't know is really riveting, and psychoanalysts share my wonder at how it all unfolds.

When I meet successful people I ask 100 questions as to what they attribute their success to. It is usually the same: persistence, hard work and hiring good people.