When my writing really started to take off was when I made a decision that I would write only what I wanted to write, and if 10 people wanted to hear it, that is fine.- David Friedman
When I got to Broadway, I conducted five Broadway shows.
There is no seam between my songs and myself-they really are me. It's not like I am performing; I am just singing stuff that I really believe.
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
Songwriting is the most terrifying thing to me, because you are really laying your heart out there.
My first career was as a coach and a teacher.
My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing.
It's an interesting line that I walk. The AIDS crisis has done a lot for my songs and made them proliferate, and my songs have contributed a lot to that cause as well.
It sometimes feels like I am not doing anything.
In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure.
I have written several deeply personal songs this year, which I really love. Some of them came out of intense sadness. This has been an extremely difficult year for me.
I have been doing my big theater projects, which take years, and writing a song here and there.
I have been doing a lot of studying singing, and I am thinking of recording an album containing all my old war horses and putting out a songbook at the same time.
I am trying to have everything that I put into the world be something that makes a difference in the way I want to make a difference.
I am not totally altruistic. I have always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure.
