I grew up seeing my parents perform and sing, and I just always wanted to be singing, too. Music has always been my deepest passion and what I felt most connected to.

English is like music. The English language is really fit for singing. The notes match the feelings, and it makes sense.

To me there is no picture so beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and ringing laughter.

I used to work in the cotton fields a lot when I was young. There were a lot of African Americans working out there. A lot of Mexicans - the blacks and the whites and the Mexicans, all out there singing, and it was like an opera in the cotton fields, and I can still hear it in the music that I write and play today.

Opera is the ultimate art form. It has singing and music and drama and dance and emotion and story.

For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.

I'm not attracted to naturalism, I'm not attracted to behavior, I'm attracted to dance. I'm attracted to gesture, I'm attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I'm a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined movies.

When I came out, it wasn't a big formal conversation like in the movies. I just started living as my true and authentic self and opened up my life to my parents - sharing who I was, and bringing a girlfriend when I came home for a visit. To my great surprise, my parents accepted me for who I was and have supported me since.

I grew up idolising Madhuri Dixit, though I wasn't a Hindi film buff. I had an academic upbringing, and movies were a rarity. I looked up to Madhuri because I loved dancing, and she's a fantastic dancer.

I didn't know that I could do a talk show. I didn't know that we could bring variety to daytime. I didn't know that people wanted to see singing, and dancing and comedy in the morning.

I'm singing these songs to inspire you, to keep you going, to lift you up and give you a reason to get up in the morning.

My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!

I like to sing ballads the way Eddie Fisher does and the way Perry Como does. But the way I'm singing now is what makes the money.

I was sitting on my mom's lap across from my father to see Kay Thompson at Ciro's. And I always remember this energy force, this woman flying around the room and singing these harmonies so everyone went, 'Wow!' So I thought, 'That's what I want to do.'

I didn't understand that I could sing until I was like 11 or 12. My mom heard me singing around the house and she said, What are you doing? You really can sing! So then I started going to school and singing to the girls.

My mom is a lioness. From bringing us up to getting work done, she has everything sorted for the family. If it wasn't for my mother, I don't think our family could have stuck by each other.

Starting in my teens, I was always standing on the corner near our apartment singing harmony with friends. We'd also go to the park and sing under the bridge near the lake for the echo. When it was cold out, we'd stand in the little heated lobby in the project's administration building, where my mom paid the rent each month.

I didn't even know what 'The Voice' was, but my mom said, 'I signed you up for this singing show,' and I was like, 'All right, I guess.'

I think I wanted to sing, but I just couldn't because I was so shy. I didn't really know how to begin that other than like, singing in my room, locking the door, and trying to sing kind of quietly. I knew my mom would want to listen and she would probably bug me about it.

I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing 'Finishing the Hat' or at least reading the lyrics to 'Finishing the Hat' and other songs from 'Sunday in the Park with George' to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist.

I'm someone that needs to talk about my problems. I call my mom every single day at school just to vent about random stuff. Singing is the same thing.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing - no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn't happen that much anymore.

Writing and singing does give me some kind of release from the demons of my past, it is a therapy of sorts, but to be honest, my marriage played a more important role in the acceptance of myself than performance has ever done.

I felt that, in some ways, my novels lacked heart because of the distance between me and the subject matter. But no one wants to read a book based on good health, a happy upbringing, a long marriage.