Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has.

Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. When you hear a song and you're acting it's incredible. But when you're singing a song and you're acting it's even more incredible.

For I have learned to look on nature not as in the hour of thoughtless youth but hearing oftentimes the still sad music of humanity.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock 'n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So there's always a new generation with new music.

Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.

I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me that editing process feels like a form of play like a puzzle that needs solving and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

But you know if you live an affluent lifestyle there are all types of trappings that are there that you have to be cognizant of and you've got to try and communicate freely and gain understanding about and then keep moving on because you know sometimes lifestyles are chosen for us as opposed to us choosing them.

I'm intrigued by films that have a singular vision behind them. A lot of studio movies have ten writers by the time they're done. You have a movie testing 200 times making adjustments according to various people's opinions. It's difficult to have an undistilled vision.

If you go to Sundance the experience that I've had there as a viewer is... there's like a hundred movies there and you've got to figure out what movies are sold out what can you see. Sometimes you go to see movies that you don't know anything about because it just works into your schedule.