I learned so many roles so quickly as a young singer, I thought it was time to come back to them and make them better - deeper, more nuanced.

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.

On any journey, we must find out where we are before we can plan the first step.

I'm from Indiana the home of more first-rate second-class men than any other state in the union.

We will reflect the country we aspire to govern, and the sound of modern Britain's is a complex harmony, not a male voice choir.

To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.

Growth is improving the lot of the poor in many countries, reducing poverty by half since 1981. Freer trade could accelerate progress.

I've never really lived a conventional life, so I think it's quite foolish for me or anyone else to start thinking that I am going to start making conventional choices.

Australia played some good cricket, but they have forgotten how to win.

How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.

Anyhow they’re always exceptions. But most women, their only relationship to a man is having. Either owning or being owned.

I'm no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don't particularly want them to understand me.