I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.

When a human being without amplification makes a sound that is high and loud, it is almost unworldly.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

We are unique, each human voice, not because we are completely self-generated, but because of who we choose to assemble the countless factors that made us.

We sing with the entire body. The sounds that we make emanate not just from the head, but from the whole heart and soul, and, most important, the gut.

I don't want to be somebody who stands still and sings pretty. Each song is a world. Each song is a story. I don't achieve nearly what I want.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year-and those are days you won't be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.

It is our responsibility to learn how to speak to an audience that is less informed about music, to give it a reason to want to come and see us instead of going to the movies.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.

Reading is all about losing and finding yourself.

A Maddox boy will take you all the way to the edge, but if you go with him, he’ll follow you anywhere…

We would be a few years younger, if every day we meditated for five minutes on the meanings of the word innocence.

Man would be "otherwise." That's the essence of the specifically human.

Moderation is the key to lasting enjoyment.

I get my exercise being a pallbearer for those of my friends who believed in regular running and calisthenics.

Poetry is a plan for a slit in the face of a bronze fountain goat and the path of fresh drinking water.

I want every man on the force to try his best, his level best, to try to avoid arresting anyone. I know that this going to take great will power but try.

You know, my joints don't feel sore as much, I digest food a lot better, my hands feel less swollen so I feel really good.