I've worked with a lot of people who are more famous than myself who are terribly insecure.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying - even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.

People hate me because I am a multifaceted talented wealthy internationally famous genius.

It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.

There's no difference between fame and infamy now. There's a new school of professional famous people that don't do anything. They don't create anything.

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous you end up with a 24-hour job.

I'm not comfortable being around too many people. I don't like being out in public too much. I don't like going to bars. I don't like doing celebrity stuff. So most of the characters I play are people who don't always feel comfortable beyond their small circle of friends.

It's really easy to avoid the tabloids. You just live your life and don't hang out with famous people who are in the tabloids. Don't do anything controversial and be a normal person. Have friends. And get a job and keep working.

I just want to make music I don't want people to talk about me. All I've ever wanted to do was sing. I don't want to be a celebrity. I don't want to be in people's faces you know constantly on covers of magazine that I haven't even known I'm on.

We all want to be famous people and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

But I am Armenian and I understand what it is to lose a country and lose a family and have massacres and genocides and everything against my people.

My family brought me up to be very respectful of people.

I'm very very concerned about the Bush presidency. I'm worried about the kinds of cuts in domestic programs that mean something to a lot of people including members of my family who depend on certain things from the government.

My family was all born in Sicily and I'm Italian-American. They're the real thing. They're authentic Italians and honestly they're the most open-minded nicest people in the world and nothing can really offend them. That's the way I think true Sicilians are.

I think 'Tattoo''s a song that can go so many different ways. Some people think of it as a break-up song but for me it's about somebody who comes into your life and really touches you - be they a friend a family member or someone you're in a relationship with.

The American people know what's necessary to get this economy moving again. It's fiscal discipline in Washington D.C. and across-the-board tax relief for working families small businesses and family farms.

For me it's about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me is something deeply personal. It's where I came from my family I was brought up in a religious household and that's very important to me.

There's a sort of sibling moratorium when you're establishing yourself as an adult. So much of your energy has to be focused on other things like work and kids. But when people become more settled siblings tend to regroup because now you're building a new extended family.

Touring is tough. You're almost in a haze because you don't really know where you are half the time: You're in a hotel room one moment and the next thing you know you're onstage performing for 60 000 people then you're back on an airplane. It's very hectic and I couldn't do it without my family.

Some of the things you read you get an immediate reaction to so I've stopped reading things now. I do worry about my family though. Some people do try some nasty things to get at them and try and get a reaction from them.

It has to be real and I think a lot of the problems we have as a society is because we don't acknowledge that family is important and it has to be people who are present you know and mothers and fathers both are not present enough with children.

People just don't laugh when their family is violated and you don't shrug it off. You band together and you defend together. It's a funny primitive instinct.

You know most people they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds the Van Halen family.