Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.

I like pastels and lighter shades on darker skins. I feel like it lifts everything and accentuates being chocolate.

I respect hippos. They just look the way they do; they can't do anything about it, but they don't seem bothered.

I love church buildings, particularly cathedrals, and I like living in spaces that remind me of music or evoke that creative energy.

My songs are very personal, which means they are fantastically therapeutic to write, but performing them night after night is emotionally draining.

Who made you the center of the universe?

My parents encouraged us to commit to things, so if we wanted to learn an instrument, it was all the grades and all the theory.

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

I always said when I was younger, I wanted to write film music, and I think that's what my ultimate dream is.

I really love jazz, but I will never be a jazz musician as much as I dream. But, I think that the jazz music I love is there in my music.

You don't have to aim to be the best of everything, thinking that one day you're going to be the top of the world; I don't think it exists.

You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking.

Lie to me again, " she whispered. "I love you, " he said.

Christianity with its doctrine of humility of forgiveness of love is incompatible with the state with its haughtiness its violence its punishment its wars.

Your fortune is not something to find but to unfold.

Well, I know I worked for Governor Rockefeller the last time he ran for his fourth term, and I obviously ran against Governor Cuomo the time he ran for his fourth term.

But the nuclear powers still cling tenaciously to their weapons.

Abandon knowledge and your worries are over.

You don't get to be old bein' no fool.

No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash. That’s why they call it rewriting.

A wise man sings his joy in the closet of his heart.