I hated being Gareth Thomas. I hated the man I looked at in the mirror.

I've been through 20 years of torment battling with my sexuality.

I had a lot of anger because I didn't like who I was when I was off the field. I used to relish the chance to try and hurt somebody in a legal way, and in the game of rugby you were able to do that.

It's only when you leave the rugby bubble that you understand that negative criticism is not personal, it's reality because we don't always get everything right.

I loved playing rugby so much. I would have played rugby every day if I could have. I loved being a player so much, I don't know if I could sit on the side, with the passion I have and try and influence without being on there.

Everything I ever did in my life when I was younger revolved around wanting to play for Wales, and then you get that cap... it's hard to describe.

I've been through the first cap, the 50th, and the 100th, and I defy any player who has ever gone past all those milestones to look at each of them and say that first cap isn't the one that makes him tingle the most.

I can remember lacing up my boots ahead of my first cap against Japan in the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. I remember the changing room, the smell of the place, every last detail of how I warmed up, walking out onto the pitch, thinking how proud my parents would be. I was doing all I ever wanted to do.

People can be really famous in Wales for rugby, but outside of Wales nobody really has a clue who you are or what you've done.

Growing up I wasn't aware of a single gay person in our town. The only people who were gay that you had any idea of were Kenny Everett and people like him on TV. I thought, that's not what I am.

I'm not a stereotypical gay man but I am a gay man as much as anyone else.

I've always wanted to go to Chicago.

You've got to be a right grouch to hate holidays, but one thing I do hate is the old towel on the sun bed trick. It kills me that people get up at five in the morning and go down to the swimming pool and reserve their sun bed with a towel.

I've had toiletries explode in my bag and go all over my clothes a few times but I wouldn't let something like that ruin a holiday for me.

You aren't wealthy until you have something money can't buy.

Happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you got.

Just keep taking chances and having fun.

Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

Stand straight, walk proud, have a little faith.

True country music is honesty, sincerity, and real life to the hilt.

I've been taking batting practice in my barn where nobody can see me, so I may be better than anyone thinks.

The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.

It's funny how a chubby kid can just be having fun, and people call it entertainment!

I just love to see people having a good time.

Thank God I'm with the love of my life. That's why I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

I'm much too young to feel this damn old.

I'd love to play a villain in a movie, the kind of bad guy you would never think of me being able to play. Like most people, I have a darker side I'd like to explore onscreen.

That smell of freshly cut grass makes me think of Friday night football in high school. The smell of popcorn and cigar smoke reminds me of the stadium. The cutting of the grass reminds me of the August practice.

Whatever I do, I hope it's quality, I hope it's something that's class.

Here's my whole marketing idea: treat people the way you want to be treated.

Any time I'm in a moving thing, like an airplane, I'm usually asleep before we even get on our way.

No matter what you say you might do, you never really know until you're in the moment. Every situation is so different.

I spend all my time right now trying to combat music retail and copyright.

I'm very square and proud of it. The flag stays on the porch here.

All the artists out there, I ask you and beg you: Take over your ship. It's your career. It's your life.

That's what you want to do as an older artist - you want to reinvent, but there has to be that vein in there for why people were listening to you before in the first place.

With Ghost Tunes, you just try to do what's right. And what's right is whatever the copyright owner wants to do with their music, they do it.

I live my life by these little church signs you see as you drive around, and there's one near me that says, 'If we really knew each other, we would neither idolise nor condemn.' And that's it: if we all knew each other, then we wouldn't treat anybody any different. And there wouldn't be any big stars, I guess.

I can take the steel guitars and fiddles off, we can make it a little more pop, cover ideas that are a little less cowboy. But you got to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, whose flag you are under? For Garth Brooks, I'm steel, fiddles, red, white and blue.

Nashville, there's people that are ten times more talented than me, ten times better singer than me, song writer than me, but for some reason you get the ball, and now - and now you run with it. And you do the best you can.

One of the greatest gifts we have is our own mistakes and somebody singing about them.

Don't change a thing. That's one of the best gimmicks a band could ever come up with.

You can't succeed if you don't know what losing is.

If God came down here with the box that had the reason for living in it, I'd like to find just 2 words: The Music. That would be neat.

Once you've figured out how to wait on people and clean toilets, it makes you very mindful of how you treat the people who are serving you.

I wouldn't trade a thing. Even the troubles that I had. I have become the husband and mate to my wife that I have because of what I went through, including the bad times. I wouldn't trade that.

Why I got into music was James Taylor, so to see him be a real down-to-earth guy that's unbelievably talented... then to hear him sing those lyrics of 'What I'm Thankful For,' which is a song Ms. Yearwood and I got to write together, that was definitely a highlight of my recording life.

Music should always be first.

In advertising, you have a small window to say the most you can. That's what songwriting is. The difference is, you get to put the leaves on the trees and colour 'em in.

People aren't always themselves. They're always holding back something.