I was a shy kid, but somehow I knew I would make it as a performer. I'd always be telling my mum that I was going to be a famous singer. In my school yearbooks I would write, 'Remember me when I'm famous.' I knew I had a gift.

I guess some people want to be performers because they want to be famous.

When I moved to the East Village in the late seventies, I wanted to be a street performer, so I practiced daily. I never did work up the skills or the courage to perform on the street, though.

That is the godawful thing about television today. Performers don't have any place to hit and miss. You're either in or you're out; you don't have a chance to become good at your craft. If you make three pictures in a row and they don't go over, you're out of the business.

Being a top performer - whether it's in business or on the athletic field - requires grit and tenacity, as well as the continuous desire to become better.

I lived for 15 years in Los Angeles, and I still can't believe that the handsomest man in the world, Cary Grant, and the greatest performer in the world, Fred Astaire, and Johnny Carson, one after another - they were all in my home at different times. I celebrated my 50th birthday with them. Unforgettable.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

I love festivals because they seem like more of an artsy, supportive attitude - which benefits a more theatrical performer sometimes with having theater and other non-club venues, as well as the audience being filled with other artists. It's nice to be with other comics, as usually at other road gigs, I'm solo for the most part.

Usher is amazing. He's perfection to me as a performer. He gets down.

I love everything about Asuka, and everyone loves Asuka. She's an amazing performer, worker, mother, and friend. Genuinely, she is the best. I can see myself growing and learning so much with her. She's done it all, and she's the toughest woman I know.

We shouldn't feel restricted by our sexuality, and our sexuality doesn't have to be a cultural choice. That's an amazing variety of music within those five main performers.

Your life experience is a moving picture, of which you are writer, director, performer, producer and critic.

The things that have always been important: to be a good man to try to live my life the way God would have me to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life to do my work without looking back to give it all I've got and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.

I'm so thankful for the Internet because actors and singers and performers now have a way to connect with their fans on a very personal level which I think is quite special.

For the past few years I was the more visible Asian performer and I think it gave young girls a kind of role model showing it's possible to actually reach success doing movies.

I don't remember ever deciding to become a performer. I just always was. I began performing by mimicking the performers on the new television that first took the attention away from me as the baby of the household. I continued performing to put a smile on my grandmother's face and always considered her when accepting or declining roles.

Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire 'troubadours.' I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L'Occitane I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you've got the respect of white and colored you can ease a lot of things.

Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no like 'I'll be the rock star you be the adulating fan.'

Music never dies. Do we really need another Madonna tour? Does she have to compete with women performers 25 years her junior?

Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven't gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course everyone wants to own copyrights.

For me 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself finding out who I was learning the power I could have as a performer.

Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge for it requires from its disciples composers and performers alike not only talent and enthusiasm but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study and reflection.

I want to be safe in the knowledge that I can tour and play festivals for a long time. The main thing is that I want a good reputation as a live performer. If I have that I'd be so happy.