When you have a teacher who is part of a tradition, the other people in that tradition are such stars. You just look at them like pop stars.
I don't think people look at how pop stars live and feel anything aspirational at all.
Early American music and early folk music, before the record became popular and before there were pop stars and before there were venues made to present music where people bought tickets, people played music in the community, and it was much more part of a fabric of everyday life. I call that music 'root music.'
I always felt in my band and in the pop-rock format that I wasn't weird enough, that I wasn't standing out enough. Wearing things to get people's attention - I didn't want to do any of that. I didn't want to compromise myself.
If I go to a movie and it's particularly violent, and people are leaving the theatre ready to vomit, we're sitting there with our popcorn just chuckling.
What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope... It is not a reflection of all religious people.
I realised there were no good role models for kids. Popeye eats spinach, but also smokes and hits people.
People desire power. I don't know why they want it so. It seems to me it implies a hugely superior intellect which separates them from most of the populace.
What we need more than anything else is an informed populace. I believe people want to be informed.
People constantly make pop-culture references. That's why it's called popular culture, because people are aware of it and reference it constantly.
Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.
Entertainment isn't just based on the very structured syndrome of European popular music, and it's great that there are so many thousands of people who are of the same opinion.
I don't like it when people spout about the popular opinion just to make it louder.
That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.
Popular opinion is the biggest 'filter' for most people - they don't have to try something if they've already been told it's not cool.
I'll put it like this: When I was in high school, I would never win a popularity contest back then... it was always somebody else that got picked first for whatever reason. But all those people that went before me usually dropped the ball... then I'd get my shot.
I don't care whether people like me or dislike me. I'm not on earth to win a popularity contest. I'm here to be the best human being I possibly can be.
Anytime something starts to feel like a popularity contest or not about the music, I'd rather just not be involved. I'm not a big high-fiver. That really gets to people around me when we have a No. 1 or something big happen. I'm not a big, 'Let's go have a party about it!'
You don't have to like me as a person - I understand that I can get on people's nerves with the antics I do in the ring. This is not a popularity contest. I'm trying to do whatever I can to win the fight.
Sometimes music can really seem like a popularity contest with beautiful people.
