Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck.

If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.

The difficult I'll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you - and kill you the long, slow, hard way.

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

Open the doors of your heart and they will come…And for every cruel arrow, Sweet caresses of delirium alsoTo nourish your soul.

In a brain scan, relational pain—that caused by isolation during punishment—can look the same as physical abuse. Is alone in the corner the best place for your child?

The time will come that humans will be able to grasp the true essence of matter, so they will no longer need their physical bodies in order to live and to exist in this universe.

I prefer to imagine that my wife, a few friends, and occasionally my mom are the only ones who read what I do, though I realize that this is somewhat unrealistic.

First you inspect me Then you dissect me Then you reject me I wait for the day That you'll resurrect me "Animate

Be patient when it seems things are not going right and may never be right again. Accept that what is yours will come to you in the right way at just the right moment.

Focusing on the score attaches you to the result. Focusing on the process lets you access your greatest skill and increases your fun.

I think I have a natural, if I can say that, got a kind of natural ability in comedy.

Because I hate fake people and I always think I'm never fake.