It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.

Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie.

You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.

Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.

Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision.

I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn.

You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.

Never apologize for showing your feelings. When you do, you are apologizing for the truth.

The secular world often finds its constituents disenfranchised and solitary as it has spent a great deal of time debating the religious community while failing to build a true community of its own.

Gandalf: Often does hatred hurt itself!

Life and death played out before my very eyes. You don't see these things if you clean your room regularly.

Travel, of course, narrows the mind.

The thing is...what they don't tell you about forgiveness is this-you don't give it for the other person's sake, but your own.

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

Looking back on my own career, I've come to the conclusion that too much money is worse than too little.

I can't do anything I want to. I mean, I can't have my own TV show. I can't have my own movie. But within my little world, nobody tells me what to put on the albums.

Why am I dying to live if I'm just living to die.