In a funny way, when things went wrong in my life - and it is my fault that they went wrong, it is not anyone else's fault - and all the glittering outside things were taken away, I was left with the things of most value.
When I started my program... there was a big clock in the corner and I looked and it said nine o'clock exactly. And it was funny, because when I was standing on the podium, it said exactly 10 p.m., and this whole hour had changed my life.
I worshipped money so much that it ruined my life. Money is not my god. I just want to manage His money for Him, for the poor people, the lost kids. I just love everybody.
What the purpose of my life is about is I want to become the kind of person that God wants me to become, and through my study of the scriptures I can articulate the kind of person that God would be happy if I become.
The presence of any humility in my life is purely and completely an evidence of God's grace. From my perspective, I am not a humble man. I am a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God.
Over the course of my life, I have made many transitions - most of them taking me further away from my Somali roots and steadily toward the enlightened mentality of Western democracy.
When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.
The people have given me their support; they have given me their trust and confidence. My colleagues have suffered a lot in order to give me support. I do not look upon my life as a sacrifice at all.
My main objective with every album is to capture a moment in time, which usually makes the whole process very relaxing. I only discover in retrospect when looking back at the songs how my life is going!
For pragmatic reasons, I love the routine. I love the structure of it. I love knowing that my days are free. I know where I'm going at night. I know my life is kind of orderly. I just like that better.
I had a body wax. It's the most painful thing I have ever done in my life. I had every single hair on my body pulled out, and I really bruised.
I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don't know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.
My brother was very important to me. And he played guitar. So that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a guitar player. So he was the first one to inspire me to do something with my life. And I was so glad that he was there.
Perhaps this is one of the last remaining strands of my Catholic upbringing, but to me the word 'worship' means absolute unquestioning affirmation of the authority of the deity. I'll not have that in my life. If you are wise, neither will you.
To not sing with an orchestra, to not be able to communicate through my voice, which I've done all my life, and not to be able to phrase lyrics and give people that kind of joy, I think I would be totally devastated.
I get bored if I do the same thing. The only constant that I have in my life is that I start whatever I do with my Total Gym, because I believe it helps keep me from getting injured.
The Gong Show provided me with five years of the happiest times of my life, but that's that. And to be known as the guy who gave the world The Gong Show - listen, my Uncle George isn't known as anything. So I guess it isn't so bad in that context.
I care about being formally physically attractive in my life, and I think that I am quite vain about my performance. I'm just not vain about how I look while I give the performance.
At this stage of my life, I've dedicated myself to playing what I want to play, how I want to play it for the rest of my time. Regardless of whether one might like it or one might not like it, this is where I am.
Even before I had an assistant, my calendar was color-coded and I had all these different e-mail rules for how to prioritize e-mails, so I made it a point years ago to figure all that stuff out because my life was a mess.
Being a third-generation Mexican-American and speaking English exclusively, I heard Spanish spoken by my relatives all my life, especially when they didn't want me to understand what they were talking about.
