“I sang for my family. And I think probably the first time I sang and got paid for it, I was about 6 or 7.”

On Saturday afternoons, there was a film, of course, and then we did about four shows between the films. And I would do a tap dance, a little military tap.

The place that seems most dangerous is exactly where safety lies.

New Year’s Eve, we’re going to be doing a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Symphony Hall. It makes me feel good, because of all the people they could have had, they wanted me! We do have to do a little work with the rhythm section.

I have absolutely no desire and no thought of quitting ever.

Young people who are just starting out somehow need to let you know they know how to sing.

If you’re able to be yourself, then you have no competition. All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence.

The world wants us to be who we truly are, not who we think others want us to be.

If you’re happy, you eat. If you’re sad, you eat. You lose a job, you eat. You get a job, you eat. It’s, you know, it’s addiction.

Even within the last three or four years, I have a greater ability to communicate, I think. I have more courage to show the stuff… And it does take courage.

What actors need to do is to find a way to show people their despair, their joy, their pain, their exhilaration. All of these deep, deep emotional things – good and bad – so that if you’re able to do that, then there’s a kind of resonance that happens.

I look back at photographs and I remember at the time I thought I was not very attractive.