Sing a song correctly and you live forever.

The best thing you can do is to be a woman and stand before the world and speak your heart.

I am the first instrument. I am the voice. I do not imitate other instruments. Other instruments imitate me.

I don't have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapist is in my paint brushes.

It's a spirit that was given me and the relationships and meeting all these great people, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong; through Max I met a lot of people too. My first album was with Benny Carter.

I was looking for the people who were making the music inside the cabinet. I would look in there and see if I could find somebody who was making all this wonderful music.

You can never loose a thing If it belongs to you.

I think that's what really a substantial work is, it's forever. It's the truth now and it was the truth then, and it will be the truth tomorrow.

We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It's our memory banks.

She dances in a ring of fire and throws of the challenge with a shrug.

A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.

Suffering is a good teacher. It keeps you in its grip until you've learned your lesson.

Just looking into something kind of analytically can give a lot of ideas.

Patience is a crucial but rare investment commodity.

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth.

I don't take vacations.

I went to school, I went to college. I know how to read. Even though I lack common sense sometimes, I am book smart.

Carter leaned toward me and brushed the hair away from the side of my face. "Don't look down then," he whispered.