I like pastels and lighter shades on darker skins. I feel like it lifts everything and accentuates being chocolate.

I respect hippos. They just look the way they do; they can't do anything about it, but they don't seem bothered.

I love church buildings, particularly cathedrals, and I like living in spaces that remind me of music or evoke that creative energy.

My songs are very personal, which means they are fantastically therapeutic to write, but performing them night after night is emotionally draining.

Who made you the center of the universe?

Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.

My parents encouraged us to commit to things, so if we wanted to learn an instrument, it was all the grades and all the theory.

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

I always said when I was younger, I wanted to write film music, and I think that's what my ultimate dream is.

I really love jazz, but I will never be a jazz musician as much as I dream. But, I think that the jazz music I love is there in my music.

You don't have to aim to be the best of everything, thinking that one day you're going to be the top of the world; I don't think it exists.

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

Nothing doth worse become a man (I will not say a Christian man) than war.

The only disability in life is a bad attitude.

I know everything because I know nothing.

...our best task is to move forward without insisting others slide backward.

My nine-year-old daughter is very creative and colorful and trendy.

What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

There are lots of people who are red-carpet types, but that's not me.

Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.

I'm usually one of these guys analyzing what does happen and putting it in focus and context.