You could play probably a span of 50 years of me playing St. Louis Blues, and most of the time it will be different every time.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

Kinship doesn't come from skin color. It's in your soul and your mind.

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies

We couldn’t be friends. We couldn’t be enemies.So what were we?

The human heart is a dark forest

Faith Hill is a big role model.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

I've always approached screenplays and so forth with, "How would it really happen?" Not "What's the movie version?" but "What's the real-life version?" Then I just follow my nose.

All this time I've hated myself for it. I thought I'd given it up for nothing. But if I hadn't fallen, I wouldn't have met you.

If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.

When the Reich could no longer pay its obligations, Germany would go bankrupt.

A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom of meagerness.

I'm forbidden fruit. Once you go to certain households, mommy doesn't want you to see that dirty man who sticks his tongue out and spits out blood and all that stuff.