I once worked as a salesman and was very independent. I took orders from no one.

[A]s Agatha Swanburne once said, 'To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions.

Don't apologize for expressing passion.Don't back down when it comes to your integrity.Don't let anyone undermine your standards for the sake of ease.Be a character of excellence, NOT excuses.

Enough anecdotes make a pattern.

To err is human

So long as there's been black churches in the United States, there's been a relationship between spiritual well-being and material acquisition. This has always been the case.

After love, no one is what they were before.

I feel that people spend as much time skipping songs as they do listening to them in their library.

I've got a black-belt in crazy, and I know where you live.

A Grammy is a wonderful thing; all of a sudden you're given a new audience but, like anything, you have to be able to grow with these songs if you really want a long artistic career.

Most composers and arrangers these days use computer programs and keyboards, but I'm one of those dinosaurs that still writes it down on score paper and still dreams it up in his ear first.