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 just started growing. And everyone said, 'You should probably play basketball.' So I said, 'All right. I'll give it a shot.'

Chase Elliott winning is better for our sport.

On the page, 'Gone Girl' was a literary game: a tennis match of alternating chapters from Nick and Amy, with the reader offering to take each character's side every few pages.

The job of arguing with the umpire belongs to the manager, because it won't hurt the team if he gets thrown out of the game.