You want to sell records, but if you want to call yourself an artist, your job is how you express yourself.

We sat together as a family for dinner at night. And my mother had a job. My dad had a job. But there was always a meal on the table at 6:00, you know.

The first award I ever won was for Best New Artist from the ACMs, so they always will hold a special place in my heart.

I'm like everybody: I gain the Christmas 10 or so, and then I try to exercise more and dial it back.

But it required a disastrous, internecine war to bring this question of human freedom to a crisis, and the process of striking the shackles from the slave was accomplished in a single hour.

Saudi Arabia has supported Wahhabi madrasas in poor countries in Africa and Asia, exporting extremism and intolerance. Saudi Arabia also exports instability with its brutal war in Yemen, intended to check what it sees as Iranian influence.

The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.

We have to be active about kindness and about peace. I've always fantasized that it would be great if there was a Department of Peace.