When you go through hell, your own personal hell, and you have lost - loss of fame, loss of money, loss of career, loss of family, loss of love, loss of your own identity that I experienced in my own life - and you've been able to face the demons that have haunted you... I appreciate everything that I have.

If you're not a daydreamer, you haven't got any imagination.

I want to love. I want to enjoy life.

I'm not saying that I won't tour again, but the chances are slim because my priorities are different now.

I've had a great metamorphosis in my life. I struggled for a number of years because I was identified with that image of the Seventies.

It's not that my father didn't love me, it's just that he wasn't capable of consistently being there. His mood swings were gigantic.

The difference now is that the paparazzi get paid fortunes. That's what motivates people; it's about the money, sadly, at anyone's expense.

I didn't end up some sad, tragic guy singing in a lounge somewhere. I never went out and took big money for nostalgia and became like an oldies act.

I hitched up to Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love, you know? And I was very much politically aligned with that whole mentality, the whole ideology of that generation, the music, the culture, the behavior.

Until I really dealt with a lot of the demons in my life - the fear and self-doubt and unresolved issues with my old man - I could never feel fulfilled and happy. I would wake up in the morning and feel bad.

When I was 11, I moved to Los Angeles to live with my father and stepmother and my half brothers. I became really close to my stepmother, and I am still very close to my brothers. My stepmother is the actress Shirley Jones, who was in 'The Partridge Family' alongside me, so we worked together for years.

I bought my first horse when I was 15. I always loved racing and I started studying about breeding and I've been doing it now for 30 years, so I have some credibility.

I don't want to end up being some joke on a bad TV series.

In the '80s, it was difficult and frustrating to appear in the theater and TV again, even though I had some successful shows and hit records. Now, I have to say, the '90s are the best decade of my life. I've done the best work and, in a funny way, I'm enjoying the most success... more than in the '70s.

I read in one fan magazine that I was very self-centered. And I am.

I've always had a love for horses since I was really young. When I was 5 years old, the only thing that made me happy was when they'd take me out and give me pony rides.

When you have had the kind of fame I had, I was always hounded by the media and I lived a very isolated life. Now it's even more difficult. The world has changed dramatically.

All that stuff - 'teen idol' - that wasn't me.

In California, of all places, entertainment is the key to a vibrant economy. If we do not develop young adults capable of entering that world, the financial base of this state is sure to suffer and impact all of us.

I wasn't ever a bad guy, and I was never arrested or anything like that, but I was a wild boy in many respects.

I don't listen to the news or read newspapers. I don't know what's going on in this world, or why I should vote for George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I don't have enough time.

In a very short period of time, actors can become kind of relevant and hot.

Let me tell you, 10,000 is an intimate room. Believe me. I want to be able to connect to everybody in the room, and you can't with a venue any bigger than that.

Learning how to be a good parent was easy in the end because I'd basically had the What Not To Do manual.

I wouldn't want to play anything bigger than 10,000 again. I think it's too much, and you lose touch.

I've had a passion for horses since I was very young - I used to sit on the floor in front of the races on television and pretend to be a jockey - and I first began reading the racing form on the set of 'The Partridge Family.'

I saw Jimi Hendrix - it must have been four times. And he was incomparable, and his legend lives on.

It was amazing for me growing up in the musical decade of the '60s. I saw The Beatles on television and went out and bought an electric guitar.

As a father, I do everything my dad didn't do. My son Beau's birth changed my life.

All I had done for five years was work 18 hours a day all over the world. I needed to step back and distance myself from it.

For me to go back and to play for audiences some of whom have been following me for thirty years and some who have found me in the last five or six years, that's really an interesting thing. I have an audience that goes from kids to seventy year olds.

I'm a really good team player. That's what it takes to work in the theater. That's what it takes to work in a band with musicians and writers.

I've done an enormous amount of bringing light into people's lives, and I'm very proud of that and touching and inspiring people.

It is difficult to be famous and that successful where you can't even walk down the street without people chasing you, and having people build monuments to you and worshiping you - all that stuff - but I never took that to a place where I believed it. I saw it as being temporary and a phase.

I had people sleeping in front of my home. I couldn't go anywhere. It confronted me from the moment I woke up. There would be 100 people at the lot where we shot 'The Partridge Family.'

Nobody likes to be rejected, you know?

It's not about the fame and the money because if you do good work all that stuff comes.

I turned up to all my son's performances and baseball games because my father never did that for me.

I think of my career as something apart from myself.

I understand the rock star deal having been one and still going out strapping my guitar on and performing. Now, I probably do 30 or 40 dates a year and I get to relive how I felt at 19 when I played in some really bad bands.

Thoroughbred racing is really my true passion. I'm living my dream.

Just do me a favor. Don't call me 'former teen heartthrob,' okay? It's as if they were constantly discussing your second year of college. I'm not back there anymore. I'm living in the present.

Just getting your name in the papers and having people talk about you is not always a good thing.

I found myself very lost after 'The Partridge Family,' and I lost my dad and I lost my manager, and I lived in a bubble, and it took me 15 years to get through that and a lot of psychotherapy, and I'm laughing about it now!

It wasn't until later when people became aware of my writing that I would hear begrudgingly, 'You know, you really are a pretty good singer, I guess.'

I played in garage bands and rock and roll bands when I was in junior high and high school and saw some of the great talents of all time in the local area where I lived.

What I want is credibility I got as a songwriter and actor and doing 'Blood Brothers' on Broadway with my brother Shaun.

Every day is a blessing - not to get too schmaltzy, but, really, it is.

I work for me, 18 hours a day. It's my gig. So I don't have time to get a point of view.

Kids need role models, whether it's baseball players, actors or musicians: people to bring a little positive light into their hearts and minds. We need to be a little kinder to those people because it's not easy being that role model, looked upon as something we are all incapable of being - too perfect.