Please believe that I do this because I am convinced that my illness cannot be helped for any length of time and I cannot bear to be a burden on anyone any longer.

It may be that my most helpful contributions to music aren't my compact discs but my articles about other great singers of the past for American Heritage magazine.

Thank God for beautiful songs about feeling despair when you yourself are in despair. They really get us through.

I have complete artistic control, and I just do my best album every time and trust it to fate.

When I dance, I love the romance and sexiness of it, and love having it be clear to both dancers that the man leads! But the man has to know what he's doing!

Somebody called me a 'bruised romantic' once, and I like that.

If I love a song I hope to find a way to get other people to love it too.

I had no desire to become a singer until I heard Billie Holiday. The first time I heard her on a record, it was a revelation. She sounded like a woman singing about herself.

I'm very happy to have a small, long, career instead of one big hit and then oblivion.

If you sing honestly and sincerely to kids, they will respond with all their hearts.

A small world where people know each other, and still so deep, able to get lost.

Not every thought is a candle! Some thoughts can make the world darker!

Governments should not be able to bulldoze a person's home or business to benefit other individuals.

While your client is watching for you at the front door, slip out at the back.

If the fans think I'm a savior, that's fine. But they have to understand I'm one of 25 guys. I can't do it all.

Updike worked this way, and I just kinda borrowed it from him. So the memoir will be relief from novel writing for a moment.

There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered.

Naturally the U.S. trails in gold medals because every time we win one, we hand it over to the Chinese to pay off our debt.

It's really hard for actors to cross over and get any respect as a singer, and if I could just keep it separate and not use my music in movies, it's cool.

Children have an uncanny memory for what parents say, but don't do.