■ Whenever I finish a song, I still have that moment where I go, Holy shit, there was nothing, and now there’s this. It’s still a complete mystery to me how songs arrive. I understand the mechanics of it. I’ve learned it’s a craft. And so once I start working on something, I know what I have in my tool belt that’s going to get me where I need to go. But I’m still completely mystified that it happens.

■ When I was a senior in high school, Lionel Richie heard my [demo] tape and liked what I did. It says a lot about him that he would, especially at that time in his career, take the time to cold-call some kid at his parents’ house. He said, “I don’t know what your plan is, but you’ve got real talent, and you should go for it. You can’t make it in Chicago. You’ve got to either go to New York or come to L.A.” That’s all I needed to hear.

■ My dad, Dick Marx, was a really big deal in Chicago. I watched him day after day, conquering the [commercial] jingle business. Waking up every day, he couldn’t wait to go to work. That’s inspiring. There was a part of me that maybe unconsciously compared myself to him, saying, I want to be bigger than that.

■ I feel a little ripped off because my dad was killed [in a car crash] when I was 33. But he got to see and participate in a lot of my success. He wrote the string arrangements for “Now and Forever.” He conducted behind me on The Tonight Show and The Arsenio Hall Show. And when I played Poplar Creek on my first headline tour, he was conducting the Chicago Symphony behind me.

■ There was a time when it annoyed me [to be typecast as a balladeer]. But in the last 10 years, I’ve been like, Who cares? The fact that I have one song, if not multiple songs, that people in Australia and Malaysia and Singapore and India can sing along to, I should just be the most grateful guy and shut the fuck up.

■ The way I was raised was “Don’t take shit from people.” My dad, particularly, had a philosophy that “all apathy can do is breed more ignorance.” Sometimes you’ve got to slap back. When I was in school, I challenged teachers. I was never rude, but I wouldn’t just nod in agreement if I felt something was unjust. It’s just the way I’ve always been.

■ I’ve been close friends with Hugh Jackman for a long time. The way he handles the level of attention and fandom day in and day out is a master class of grace and class. I didn’t do very well with it. It finally came to a point where I just changed my thinking and was like, Put myself in their place. If there’s somebody whose work I really love, of course I want to talk to them. And how would I want to feel walking away from that scenario? Once I started to zero in on that, my mantra became “No matter what the circumstances — unless somebody is being rude — if you come up to me, I’m going to do my best to make you really happy that you did.” Because it’s easy.

■ I never want to feel like the old guy who doesn’t write songs. If somebody says, “Are you working on anything new?” I’m embarrassed if the answer is no. So I’m always tinkering with something. But the urgency to get it done, that’s not a thing anymore.