For a while it was hard for me to say no to work.

When a human being without amplification makes a sound that is high and loud, it is almost unworldly.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

We are unique, each human voice, not because we are completely self-generated, but because of who we choose to assemble the countless factors that made us.

We sing with the entire body. The sounds that we make emanate not just from the head, but from the whole heart and soul, and, most important, the gut.

I don't want to be somebody who stands still and sings pretty. Each song is a world. Each song is a story. I don't achieve nearly what I want.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year-and those are days you won't be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.

It is our responsibility to learn how to speak to an audience that is less informed about music, to give it a reason to want to come and see us instead of going to the movies.

I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.

Love is divine and pure.

Watch it, ' her mom snapped. 'Don't start a fight just because it's the easiest thing to do.

Shape your behavior and think about on how to make a good impression to others.

One finds one's way only by taking it.

I've come through things that would have felled an ox. That fills me with optimism, not just for myself but for our particular species.

That path leads ever down into stagnation.

You can hesitate before deciding, but not once the decision is made.

When I go to Japan and do shows I play for 1,000 to 1,500 people. I like a lot about Japan. Their popular culture and mass commercialization appeals to me.

I've watched Jamie Oliver 's Food Revolution, he wants better school lunches for children in the US and UK. In NZ, we want Kiwi kids to have school lunches!

The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.