I have had a very difficult time with stage fright; it undermines your well-being and peace of mind, and it can also threaten your livelihood.

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

Time is the first currency for success and one we all hold in common.

My themes are derived from current events, from familiar situations, from daily life, because I never actively intervene against the object, I can feel the magic of its presence.

We have chased away the clouds, the sky is all 'rose.'

The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.

When bad things turn good, the reason can usually be found in the human heart—sometimes in the hearts of great masses of people, sometimes in the heart of a solitary soul.

If you will lie about the little things, before long you’ll lie about bigger things.

I think I am becoming incapable of being too surprised. But it just makes me sad and sick.

A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.

Because I am untrained I approach my designs in an unconstrained way and I feel a freedom in this. It is unconventional but it means outcomes are not limited by traditional boundaries.

I love you is eight letters...then again, so is bullshit.