Most people think in order to validate yourself as an artist, you have to write your own songs. I commend the guys that do. I've done it. But I also think that you can pick great songs outside that you didn't write that can help your career.

The lips on my upper right bicep are my girlfriend's lips. She has the most amazing lips, and I wanted to carry them around with me everywhere I go, considering I can't carry her lips physically with me. So I decided to place them in a discreet location, such as the inside part of my bicep.

Not to be narcissistic, but I truly believe in order to make yourself better, you should see what you did before and what was good about that and what wasn't - same way a football team plays a game and then they go back and watch film.

I went from a playing in a bar on a bar stool for free beer and tip money, where people weren't paying attention to me, to now I've got their attention. It's up to me to what I feed them with my music. It's up to me how I do that. I've put a lot of thought into how great the songs are, and how I want people to perceive me.

Chinese growth will either be strong or very strong. They have a voracious demand for energy that will only continue to grow. What they're doing... is looking at all forms of energy. They're going ahead very strongly with coal, nuclear, oil, natural gas.

A lot of people, when they say 'forgive and forget,' they think you completely wash your brain out and forget everything. That is not the concept. What I think is you forgive and you forget so you can transform your experiences, not necessarily forget them but transform them, so that they don't haunt you or handicap you or kill you.

Well, you can, but tell you this, that when you've got an economy that is growing at 4.9% it is the fastest growth over the last 12 months we've seen in 20 years.

Politicians know that structural reforms - to increase competition, foster innovation, and drive institutional change - are the way to tackle structural impediments to growth. But they know that while the pain from reform is immediate, gains are typically delayed and their beneficiaries uncertain.