I surround myself with positive, productive people of good will and decency.

Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians - except for the occasional mountain lion steak.

I hump the wild to take it all in, there is no bag limit on happiness.

I am Classic Rock Revisited. I revisit it every waking moment of my life because it has the spirit and the attitude and the fire and the middle finger. I am Rosa Parks with a Gibson guitar.

Use your lives wisely, my friends, and conserve these precious freedoms for future generations.

The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power.

Like all other law-abiding Americans, I fully support legal immigration.

My idea of fast food is a mallard.

Mankind: A quality of life upgrade is available to each and every one of you. It should give you a quality of life upgrade, which means no drugs, no alcohol, no fast food - unless, of course, it's a mallard.

Later, at Stanford University, I thought I'd become a lawyer or businessman, but my father came to me and said he thought there was a big future in the fine-wine business.

I always knew that food and wine were vital, with my mother being Italian and a good cook.

If you go back to the Greeks and Romans, they talk about all three - wine, food, and art - as a way of enhancing life.

Personal relationships are always the key to good business. You can buy networking; you can't buy friendships.

If you believe you can make a difference, then you will make a difference. Believe in yourself, your family and your community and you will win.

Life isn't about algebra and geometry. Learning by making mistakes and not duplicating them is what life is about.

I don't think there's any real motivation for somebody to be a truck driver. Mine was simple; dad was a truck driver, I wanted to own one.

It's also a question of finding good material and interesting roles. I'm not the only actress out there, and good parts just don't fall into your lap that easily. But I like most of the films I've made recently and so I'm pretty positive about the future.

It's part of the celebrity process but my life has never been as interesting or as wild as what's been printed about me.

What's awful about being famous and being an actress is when people come up to you and touch you. That's scary, and they just seem to think it's okay to do it, like you're public property.

I'm getting asked a lot, 'You don't have kids, so how do you know how to act like a mother?' I know nothing could compare, and I haven't had that experience, but when my niece was born, I felt like I would jump in front of a car and die for this little person I didn't even know yet.

I am not a person who can really sit around and think about regrets because with every bad experience that you have, there is weirdly something good that comes from it.

It's an indication of how cynical our society has become that any kind of love story with a sad theme is automatically ridiculed as sentimental junk.

I was single for a while and dating and... I just didn't know how to do it! I've always been like that: when I was 15, there was a guy I liked, and we made out, and I thought that meant he was my boyfriend.

You can't pay enough money to... cure that feeling of being broken and confused.

Weird people follow you in the streets, you can't sit alone in a restaurant or a cafe and read a book in peace, and I think everybody values those moments of being alone.

I have this sense that I didn't really start growing up until my twenties.

People think that they just want movies like Pretty Woman, when really they - at least the ones that I know personally - have been waiting for something that doesn't completely insult them.

The description of my character in the first few movies I did was always 'nerdy,' but I liked that; it was way more interesting.

Scorsese would talk to me about this movie 'The Heiress' with Olivia de Havilland. We were talking about this scene in it, and suddenly we were rolling. It was very intentional, and I didn't realize - because we talk old movies all the time.

I think I'm learning to be bolder in my career choices and be more confident in my personal life. I haven't always felt very secure as an individual, but now I feel I certain confidence and sense of self that gets me through the day a lot better than before.

I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.

My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.

Writing is a lonely business.

I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture.

When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.

You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it.

In high school I dated a white woman. She would come to visit me on the rez. And her dad, who was very racist, didn't like that at all. And he told her one time, 'You shouldn't go on the rez if you're white because Indians have a lot of anger in their heart.'

It comes down to building your own world out here on the road. It's who you surround yourself with. My band and crew are really positive guys.

That there's no more important decision in life than who you marry.

No one dislikes LL Cool J. If you meet LL Cool J, you fall in love with LL Cool J. LL and I had mutual friends, and he and I had always talked about doing something. My fans know LL's music. And I love him - we're blood brothers at this point. We've been through the fire together. I know no finer person.

The artists who stick around for a while are the ones who go, 'Oh, that's cool, never thought of that. Ought to do that.'

I have a very down-to-earth father. My wife is an actress and famous herself is more down-to-earth than anyone I know.

By no means do I try to go out and hang out with famous people.

I'm somebody who likes to gravitate toward people who aren't necessarily famous.

When I got married, I hired a great choir - the St. James Choir, an all-black gospel choir - to sing at my wedding.

There may be people in my audience who may not agree with me on some particular issue - you know, say, as a gun owner, they may not agree with me, or, you know, someone may not agree with me on a gay marriage topic. Any of those things. But those shouldn't be the reasons you listen to my music.

When you're old-fashioned like I am, you know marriage is forever. Those vows are a promise.

I like to look at the songs like they're little movies.

I jetset around and play these songs and get to hang with some pretty amazing people, then I go home to a really great farm, though actually it's a disaster area of a farm at the moment. But it's certainly a blast. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone right now.