The reason that some singers go on to become great artists has very little to do with their voices, but rather with the fact that they have used their instruments as tools for detailed communication.

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.

Each person you meet influences your mental universe in a way that has the potential to make a substantial impact upon the causality of the intellectual development of an entire species.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Love is a universal force, like gravity, that holds the solar system together and pours into our hearts as life-force - and gets expressed to us most beautifully by small children and animals.

The age of a woman is not important: you can be wonderful in your 20's, amazing in your 40's and stay fabulous for the rest of your life.

Music is my way of getting away from everything. It means a lot to me.

I think the way we talk about cancer has really evolved. I remember the way my grandmother used to talk about it, like a death sentence, no-one would even mention the word.

I adored my mother, and I will always have extraordinary memories about her and remember her, and she opened the doors for me to appreciate arts.

[the best advice about women] was from Robert Evans. The line was in his book, but he told me, "When it comes to a woman's mind, I know nothing."

Any Idiot can point out a problem .... A leader is willing to do something about it! Leaders solve problems!