For sure, one moment really defined the path that I was to take in the future, and that was when I won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York in April of 1995. I had just turned 25 two days before the finals concert, and when I won, I had no idea how my life would change because of it.

If I can transport audiences for the three or four hours they're at the opera, to make them forget all of their worries, the bills they have to pay and all that, then I've done my job. That, for me, is very gratifying.

I perform in opera houses in the centres of big cities. We live in 20 acres of forest. You need that space to recover and renew.

It's the worst feeling, coming back after a performance when you are on a real high, and you go back alone to an apartment or a hotel room. People think we sit in hotels and eat bon bons. But the lifestyle can be very stressful.

I'm not Carl Lewis the athlete any more. I'm growing into a new person with new interests and new goals.

Education is the most powerful tool for everything but certainly to create opportunities for yourself, and I know that not everyone has the privilege of an education like here in America.

There will be no more one-size-fits-all. Education will respond to you.

Sport was an integral part of school life. The most influential teachers were not necessarily the PE teachers, but the teachers who helped me in sport because they had an understanding of what you were going through.