Born on June 3rd

"During my draft process, I had Seattle come and work me out. This is one of the places where I thought I might be drafted. I'm glad it worked out I'm here."

"That whole rivalry with the fans is not something that I can pay attention to right now. This is my new home, and whatever I can do to help out Seattle is what I need to do."

"Songs sometimes are so connected to the sociology of the time."

"Our house is a constant mayhem of music, noise, socializing and business. It vibrates life, as a house should."

"Some stresses are unavoidable - it's just part of life. One of the things I do to avoid stress is not work with people that I don't really like or drive me crazy."

"Much as my Boomer friends will hate me for saying this, Kanye West is the New Dylan. Not only do Kanye's best lyrics match Dylan's prescience, highly inventive word-play and genius for storytelling, his indefatigable cockiness eerily channels Muhammad Ali."

"Let's face it: pop music in its myriad permutations will always be sexually presumptuous, racially controversial and, frequently, politically charged."

"Since the dawn of recorded music, every generation has felt shocked by the musical tastes of the next."

"I didn't have that thing that Michael Bolton did; my star power - my charisma - was not a match to my writing ability."

"I lost myself in the bubble of music - driving myself to be a success."

"You succeed and accomplish and accomplish; the problem is when you stop, you become depressed because you could never do enough."

"I think my father had a certain degree of insecurity and need to achieve."

"My dad was one of four children. His three siblings were female, and he loved and protected them."

"In 1953, Mom and Dad, living in Toronto, discovered, to their shock, that Mom was expecting. I was born in June 1954. My parents, thrilled, showered me with love."

"Blessed with Mom and Dad's remarkable genes, raised on big words and big, iconoclastic attitudes, Larry and I, before entering kindergarten, knew who we were, what we wanted, and how we would get there."

"To be sure, boxing has always been, at best, a shady and sometimes cutthroat business, buttressed by hype and tomfoolery rivalling, at times, that of carnival circuses."

"Ringside seats mean you hear the breaking of ribs, the splattered cartilage of what was once the boxer's nose, the dislocation of the jaw, the horrifying 'ugggh' that the boxer utters milliseconds after receiving a crushing left hook to the solar plexus or kidneys or head."

"All the Junos, the Grammy nominations, the gold and platinum records, did nothing to assuage my conviction that I was an out-and-out loser."

"Woody Allen movies notwithstanding, therapy, in the early eighties, was not exactly a hot conversation starter. Nor was it a favoured activity for dysfunctional couples or suffering individuals."

"My, oh my, how 'Sometimes When We Touch' has travelled since I solemnly wrote my first version at the age of 19."

"While certainly no pressing threat to Gordon Lightfoot, I knew it was simply a matter of time until I was going to be a star."

"The tricky thing about songwriting is that, more often than not, what you consider to be your best work generates a collective shrug, and something you've simply tossed off bowls people over."

"To be 23 and riding the crest of a song sweeping the world country by country is to live an altered and wholly rarefied existence."

"My wife is unusually kind and generous, but she's no fool. You don't mess with her."

"If we don't invest now in so-called priority neighbourhoods with music classes, athletic facilities, and skills training and mentoring, we will all pay more in the long run."

"Sling your guitar to wherever you're going, and you'll be amazed by the connective power of music: It knows no boundaries, cultures or class."

"I feel like I have adopted the Philippines as my second country."

"When you look at the lyrics of 'Sometimes When We Touch,' it's really very much an adolescent song."

"With my son, I tried not to be so judgmental and tried not to push him so hard. I didn't want him to feel that everything or that our love for him will be based on how much he has achieved."

"So many songwriters peak in their early 20s because they're living off their passions."