The way to respect all the people I love is to eat the music, have it in my blood and bones, and try to explore it in as much different ways as possible to create my own identity.

I have always liked black and white! It is simple and the colour of the piano.

Nobody wants to experience sad events but people like to listen to sad songs. That's the beauty of music.

Every day is different and improvised. Sometimes, a song can lead to a completely different adventure. You can't control it.

I started to listen to Japanese jazz musicians when I went to high school. Some people I listened to were Yosuke Yamashita, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe.

Work hard! Just keep working hard until you can do something you want to do! We all progress at different speeds and in different ways, so be patient and keep working hard!

The beautiful thing about music is that even so-called negative emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, when they come through the filter of music, they all become beautiful.

Everybody improvises without noticing it. Life is about improvising. You can't control what happens in your life, I mean, you don't know what can happen in your life today. So you somehow improvise.

Challenges are the key in life. You always have to challenge yourself and try to get to different states.

Everything is inspiring! It could be fine art or a conversation I have with somebody!

To be nice to people and make them happy - that's my philosophy in life.

You don't need an entire garden bed, to notice the beauty of a flower.

When the egoism becomes zero

The soul evolves as a person addresses the chaos, vagaries, and perplexities of enduring an earthly life. We each ultimately become our own version of an ideal self by stage-managing who we become.

Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.

The greatest men of a nation are those it puts to death.

What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our Commander-in-Chief, what we heard today was a political broadside from our Campaigner-in-Chief.

Writing gave me a second chance - not to change things, but to savor them. That is a great gift.

When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you.

Football: A sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.

All of that loneliness and longing in my heart got transferred into the book Because of Winn-Dixie, I guess.