One of the beautiful things about music is it gives you an opportunity to learn how to tell the truth, and it's a life-long learning process.

The only thing as a kid that really mattered to me was that I wouldn't quit. When I say 'quit,' I mean you wake up, you go to the piano, you go to whatever instrument, and you work at learning how to tell the truth.

The transition from fan to performer to recording artist, for me, was like learning how to dive... and each board got higher and higher.

I guess it's about getting older. I know that I'm going to lose people that I love - I'm going to die myself - so everything seems to be getting somehow sweet and more important and more special and more humbling and more challenging and more terrifying all at the same time.

Not many people can say their family has seen them play at a World Cup.

I believe to be a leader is to enable others to embrace a vision, initiative or assignment in a way that they feel a sense of purpose, ownership, personal engagement, and common cause. I was very affected as a child by my father's positive example as a civic leader who inspired others to share his commitment to improving our community.

I wasn't happy at all as a child. I was very privileged and knew extraordinary people, but I felt very lonely: my mother thought I was extremely difficult and my grandmother was extremely severe.

It's hilarious to me that by writing an obscene fake children's book I am mistaken for a parenting expert.