I'm not exactly an angry young person.

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.

Sometimes you go do the opposite things anyway because in actuality... The whole time you've been wanting to hear the right thing from a person that will stop you.

I used to rely on black-and-white, and while I was working on 'Smile, ' I learned to adapt to color on my end.

Don't be in a hurry to change one evil for another.

Quite frankly, the bible is filled with advice that you'd never, want to follow. "Don't cut your hair on a rainy Thursday because locusts will eat your farm" kind of thing.

We were wavering around like a ship without a sail.

Keeping a smile on your lips even when you're on the verge of tears. Feeling sorry for those who show their feelings.

We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.

Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit.

So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.

To actually be a part of a brand that you look up to, and a legendary one at that, is super dope.