"I think a dad has to make his daughter feel that he's genuinely interested in what she's going through."

"I'm not trying to be romantic. I think you can tell when people are trying to be sexy onstage. When I was doing 'All the Way,' I was really thinking about my wife. People don't know my personal experience, but they can tell it's an honest interpretation."

"Marriage has made me a lot happier and I'm deeply in love with my wife, and I thank God for her every day."

"The whole 'American Idol' way of looking at things is the antithesis of what I grew up with. There are a whole lot of kids wanting to be famous now, whereas if I'd even mentioned that word to one of my teachers, I would have got into a whole load of trouble."

"Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways."

"Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic,' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor,' it's crucial to say that."

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense."

"My wife, whenever I'd go off to work and I'd be kind of anxious, she'll say, 'Remember, have fun.' Oh, I forgot, thanks for the reminder. Because sometimes we do forget. We take it all too seriously and there's a lot of joy to be had wherever you are."