I'm a huge Freddie Mercury fan. I think he was the end-all. I love his lack of inhibition, his talent, the chances he took. He made mistakes on his records, and he didn't care.

Well, my dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years.

I do the things I like to do. It's sort of a bigger version of having more than one hobby.

New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse...

With a tone so rich, I would never be afraid of the dark. Steinway is the only and the best!

There are people who can't stand me, they say, 'God, he makes me sick', or, 'He's creepy', but it doesn't affect me too badly.

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

With imagination, I'll get there.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

Safety's just danger, out of place.

In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded.

Every great leader once fell down from a tall ladder. You don't become a star until you get the scar. Take that risk now.

Sometimes breaking down is the only solution to stepping up.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

It's good to be comfortable with who you are and what you do.

We ask the education system to expiate the sins of the rest of the society and then condemn it as hopelessly broken when it doesn't prove up to the task.

On the surface, we're polar opposites. Under the skin, though, we're the same: people think they know what they're getting, and they're always wrong.

Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end.

Imagine blocks and blocks of no cocaine, blocks with no gun play.

Well, Henry, you can cease frowning at me. If I am a magician, I am a very indifferent one. Other adepts summon up fairy-spirits and long-dead kings. I appear to have conjured the spirit of a banker.

Many a lash in the dark doth con science give the wicked.