"I think I’ve been able to use my gifts as an educator to help several people that I’m completely aware of, and probably many more that I’m not aware of, get out of poverty. Yeah, so I think my exuberance for sharing what I know enabled others' lives to greatly benefit. And that’s a profound thing for me."

"Being in love is just a chemical reaction, in my mind. And it feels really great til it wears off. Staying in love is the thing that I have a problem with. I just don’t stay in love with things forever. Except my dogs."

"I’ve been working really hard lately on conquering fear. Anxiety is a terrible thing. Depression is a terrible thing. And it’s something that I know very well. I think music has helped me overcome so many fears. I think that I wouldn’t be here still if I weren’t doing music."

"I try to be as healthy as I can in every phase. I try to eat good and exercise, I do a lot of exercise. I try to pursue spiritual goals and stuff like that. I’m constantly trying to erase blindspots. Try to look at myself in the mirror. Try to get a clearer picture of who I am."

"It reminds me of, ya know, the Pablo Picasso quote, 'The purpose of life is to find your gift and the meaning of life is to give it away.' So that’s my goal is to try to find that gift that I think—I think my gift is kindness because I always got that growing up… 'You’re too nice. You’re too kind.' They almost like put me down for that reason ..."

"Philosophically, my greatest fear is living in fear and not out of love. Ya know, it’s making those decisions every day that come out of fear and knowing when I’m not in alignment. Not being in alignment is my greatest fear. Being fictitious. Suppressing my true nature."

"So that allowed me to be sort of free to just enjoy the experience and be grateful that I was there and my parents were there and we could just celebrate that together as a family. Which was awesome. And it was meaningful for me and it was meaningful for them especially considering that just twelve years before I had a fifty percent chance to live and cancer and everything."

"Witnessing a child being born—your child being born is, ah, yeah it changes you forever, there’s no doubt about that. We went through it twice, we have two girls, and they’re a big part of my life and I love them, and yeah, it’s a pretty easy answer to be honest."

"I was adopted, so I had a family that—for some reason, I just had rage and maybe it was me not knowing who I was or where I come from. And I had let it affect me a lot in my life. So it furthered along with them. To this day I have no relationship but I do hope to one day change that."

"...and in that moment I was like, 'OK. I’m trapped in this car. I see blood everywhere. I can’t move, really.' And I saw my phone had separated from the battery and it was like over there and I was like, 'Ahhhh, crap.' It was like that moment. Of all things that crossed my mind at that point. I would say I’m particularly close with my parents, but at that moment, that’s all I wanted. I was like, 'I wish I could tell my parents I love them right now.'"

"Just trying to be a nice person, I guess. Trying not to do bad things and try to be nice. That’s a pretty big accomplishment in this day, I suppose. There’s a lot of crap out there, so. [I’m] successful, yeah. Successful at being good!"

"But [my brother and I are] always pretty close, so I appreciate that cuz as you move through life and things change and relationships change and things happen, it’s easy to focus on things outside of the family. He’s the only family I have. No mom, no dad, no relatives. We’re just two guys in the world."

"So I think the most emotional pain is after losing people you love. So a loss, an experience of loss. I lost my brother. So it was I think the most, probably…not probably, it was the most painful experience I had."

"Probably the loss of my oldest son. Losing a wife to cancer, of almost thirty-seven years, was a pain, but losing your child when it was totally unexpected just really hurt."

"I immerse myself in the stories of everything, it’s just yeah, ever since I was little I was devouring books when I was younger, like, ya know, just… I learnt more by reading books than I ever did in school."

"I was very naive and very passionate about things that I wanna do in life and all things like that. And also very trustful to other people. So I trusted a lot to other people. I just gave them—well, I was open hearted, completely."

"And the children are now nineteen and seventeen year old daughters are, they’re fine. They don’t care what their mother thinks. I still see them on a regular basis. But the sixteen year old son and an eleven year old daughter that don’t see me as often because they don’t want to upset their mother. Because she makes life so difficult [for them]."

"This is gonna sound really weird, but I’m really interested in, like, astronomy and stuff like that. So, like, before I die I really wanna just understand everything that I can about how stars are formed and made and, like, black holes and stuff like that. I don’t know why; that’s the first thing that came to my head. I should’ve said motherhood or something like that. [Laughs]"