“I fell in love with the classical crossover genre when I was on AGT. I found out that I could use the microphone to establish a deeper intimacy with the audience. I did not portray an opera character; I was my true self.”

Never say “NO” to yourself, just try. You will never know what could happen.

But, you will not know until it actually pays off! It is easy to say: “I am not doing this anymore. It’s not working!” But, there is a time that you invested so long and so much, that giving up is not an option! You need to keep on going and believe that persistence definitely pays off.

We all want to inspire! As we go on our life’s journey, some people inspire us and in turn, we would like to do something to inspire other people.

I would sing a four-to-five minute piece for the audience and then I could talk to them and say “Hi” to them! I would not need to act out scenes where my character was dying from tuberculosis or killing somebody else on stage, I could have a nice conversation with them.

When God gives you some opportunities, it is almost like a process that you do not even realize what is recurring at the moment.

When your family is with you, it is not the hardest part. The hardest part is not giving up! Sometimes you stop and see everything and you do not know if everything that you are doing is going to pay off. If you work hard, it is going to pay off.

I am a Minnesotan, and not just because I root for the Vikings and the Twins. I like the Minnesota-nice sensibility.

Life is hard for everyone. That’s why there’s such a nice reward at the end of it.

I like to be nice. I want to be a hero. I want to save people. Or just kill zombies, because they deserve it, because they’re already dead and they can’t feel it. They don’t have feelings.

So, it’s nice but I wouldn’t want to go into something feeing like I needed to prove that I was good enough to be there.

I really hope that I can be as good as some people think I can be. But I may never work again… and that’s the reality of the film industry.

If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality, or worse still.

I think just being together and talking would be nice. But when we grow old, when greed and vanity will be completely gone, when I will be tired of singing can I return to that place too?

Right now I am full of greed and vanity, so I cannot live with you like before. But may be we can meet like this.