It's always been my philosophy to keep a lot of balls in the air. With music, most things don't pan out, so you try to increase your odds by being involved with a million things at once.

Your job as a producer is to make suggestions without putting your ego in front of everything else. Also, I think you want to focus on that artist's best qualities and really highlight them.

I had a job transcribing a biotechnology-litigation seminar. You put headphones on and fast-forward and stop with your feet. There were a lot of 'um's.'

If you're sitting in a place like Martha's Vineyard, I don't think you're going to write a song about a ski resort.

It is impossible to understand the financial health of big financial institutions and their potential impact on the market. They don't even understand it themselves.

I did not have a lot of spare time after I was about eleven because in my youth, young people used to try to find ways of making money after school. From about age eleven on, I either shined shoes or did something such.

The job of elected leaders is to deliver results that represent the interests of the citizens who placed them in a position of authority with their voice, their vote. But these days, money talks louder.

Greece's European neighbors were able step in and bolster the weak foundation on which Greece's free-spending budget was based. It would be difficult for any country, or intergovernmental organization, to rescue an economy the size of the U.S. if investors were ever to lose faith in our bonds because of our enormous debt.