I want to keep my voice young, with nothing heavy.

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.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

We all must walk in the Spirit

When we do something, we may not think about why we are doing what we are doing, says Oehler, for then it would suddenly be totally impossible for us to do anything.

Taffeta phrases silken terms precise Three-piled hyperboles spruce affectation Figures pedantical.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

The leaves on the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations, but what are the fruits for?-They must be just for the pleasure of eating!

Parrots have gone a bit quiet since pirates have gone.

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.

Acting has been described as farting about in disguise.

I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor. I see what they call the poor of this country and how many there are who feel for them!