As a young child, I thought that all pianists played everything. I mean, I thought anything on piano - any piano music, all pianists played it.

My music is homegrown from the garden of New Orleans. Music is everything to me short of breathing. Music also has a role to lift you up - not to be escapist but to take you out of misery.

And do respect the women of the world; remember you all had mothers.

As an early child, I tried to play every kind of music that I heard. I thought everyone was doing that.

To play with a band all of the time, just about nightly, was good for me because I wrote lots of arrangements and I got a lot of my transposition and chords ironed out.

When you're playing live, those people who you're trying to please and reach, they're right there giving you feedback. And you don't get that feedback in the studio.

To travel and to get around different places, especially in station wagons, you could really see America.

I never planned on being a live performer. My whole forte was about being in the studio, producing, playing the piano on recording sessions. I was all about the studio.

Whenever I wrote songs - particularly back then - it would always be for a particular artist.

The mother-in-laws themselves weren't natural jokes but most comedians used to use that.

Men should be what they seem.

There once was a woman named Story Easton who couldn't decide if she should kill herself, or eat a double cheeseburger.

People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.

Another occupation might have been better.

He that endures is not overcome.

You can't feel the need to be liked in public life, because if you do you will compromise the principles that are so important to the public having confidence in your ethics and integrity.

To the generality of men you cannot give a stronger hint for them to impose upon you than by imposing upon yourself.

I'm one of the most sensitive human beings on Earth -- and I know it.

In sorrow and suffering, go straight to God with confidence, and you will be strengthened, enlightened and instructed.

Every person has their pantheon - the Bible, Hollywood, Shakespeare - their way of understanding the world.