A brain hemorrhage puts it all in a deeper perspective. I'm one of those guys hit by lightning. I see the big picture. Everything is in perspective now. Let's just say I'm the kind of guy who knows how to enjoy the moment.

My life is part humor, part roses, part thorns.

I am truly independently owned and operated.

Thoroughly read all your contracts. I really mean thoroughly.

All my life, I've been a type 1 diabetic. I've always taken life day by day.

Any band that is out there chasing it is doing more destruction to music then someone who is out there playing what they truly feel.

Everyone wants to go to the party and the red carpet, but my life is 90% the work.

For me as a solo artist, I never want to be a nostalgia act.

I always think in life passion supersedes everything.

I do meet-and-greets at every show and meet a minimum of 20-35 fans at each.

I don't want to be a reality retro star.

I'm addicted to creating and writing.

I've had plenty of big hits and plenty of big misses.

Most bands have a two-year success rate. By the third year, it's sort of over. Here we are in Poison still together 26 years later.

You want to go to a summer concert and not watch a band staring at its shoes for six hours and complaining.

I want to tell the story. Mostly, when you see rock movies, it has to be this over-the-top thing. I want to give people a Bret Michaels movie where they see that my life is a comedy of errors. I also want to show my fans how to get through the kind of troubles that would leave most people flat on the floor.

Parenting is not for sissies. You have to sacrifice and grow up.

Lazy doesn't exist. Lazy is a symptom of something else. The person who can't get up off their butt is just a person who's depressed. It's usually a pervasive lack of self-worth, or a feeling of helplessness.

You can look for external sources of motivation and that can catalyze a change, but it won't sustain one. It has to be from an internal desire.

You've got to listen to the universe, to life, to God, whatever you want to call it. Because its going to speak to you.