Perfection often creates such a flawless surface that there's no place for the audience to enter into a piece, while the idiosyncrasies of individual style are like windows into the singer's heart.

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.

Follow the dreams that your heart visualizes, as what you actually see is just an illusion of temporary contentment.

What happens when two introverts collide? Do they dissolve completely in each other’s patience and silence, or do they break their glass shells and become new people?

Like it or not, a caterpillar must first live as a chrysalis before becoming a butterfly. Maybe I remember those days because I am going through a chrysalis stage.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

I don't know people who don't say 'boy, the government is working better now.'

God loves me so that I might make him— his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness—known among all nations.

We have to get money. We have no choice. It cost money to eat.

People like to set the bar high. I like to put the bar on the ground and barely step over it. I like to keep the expectations really low.

Sometimes unnecessary roughness is necessary.