I believe when the music is being sung or being played, at the end of it, there's some sort of grace and understanding. And that's all I want for humanity. I just want us to understand each other. That's the point of my music.

I've learned my lessons, but I'm also still learning them.

People don't always realize that as a performer, you've got to relive those moments. Memories crash through your brains, and you've got to think about your past and the reason why you wrote the song. All that emotion comes back.

With this sort of career, you need determination. You've got to sacrifice a lot of things: family, friends - not that I had any - but you sacrifice everything.

Prayer in a combat zone serves exactly the same purpose as it does in peacetime. In war, the stakes are life and death, true; but if you believe in God and in the notion of a human soul, then we are always making decisions of tremendous significance.

Illegal immigrants make a rational choice when they decide to violate our immigration laws. They weigh the costs, including the risks of getting caught, against the benefits of a better life.

In every new generation, the impulses supposed to have been rooted out by discipline in the child break forth again when the struggle for existence - of the individual in society, of the society in the life of the state - begins. These passions are not transformed by the prevalent education of the day, but only repressed.

The finest lesson I've learned with age is that all I need is a small team of comrades who inspire me, try not to judge me, and remind me when I'm judging myself.