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.

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

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.

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.

Being with him makes me feel different.

One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.

The things that stress me out haven't changed. But I don't wanna lose anything. So I thought that at least I would change. I'm lucky...that I'm afraid of losing something.

Life is war, and marriage provides us with a close and intimate ally with whom we may wage this war. The battle requires bold love, forgiveness, confrontation, and repentance.

Men do not invent Myths. They only invent fables, and tell lies. True Myths create themselves, and find their expression in the men who serve their purpose.

Have you ever noticed when you start getting happy, you say, uh-uh, I'd better watch out. I feel too good. Something's going to happen

I think Daily Kos is a really great example of where it's really worked in terms of putting the opinions of a larger group of people forward. And Kos has obviously had a huge impact on politics.

Truth (satya) is positive, nonviolence is negative.

If I could believe that God was not angry with me, I would stand on my head for joy.

Language is the machine of the poet.