To play with a band all of the time, just about nightly, was good for me because I wrote lots of arrangements and I got a lot of my transposition and chords ironed out.

My music is homegrown from the garden of New Orleans. Music is everything to me short of breathing. Music also has a role to lift you up - not to be escapist but to take you out of misery.

And do respect the women of the world; remember you all had mothers.

As a young child, I thought that all pianists played everything. I mean, I thought anything on piano - any piano music, all pianists played it.

As an early child, I tried to play every kind of music that I heard. I thought everyone was doing that.

When you're playing live, those people who you're trying to please and reach, they're right there giving you feedback. And you don't get that feedback in the studio.

To travel and to get around different places, especially in station wagons, you could really see America.

I never planned on being a live performer. My whole forte was about being in the studio, producing, playing the piano on recording sessions. I was all about the studio.

Whenever I wrote songs - particularly back then - it would always be for a particular artist.

The mother-in-laws themselves weren't natural jokes but most comedians used to use that.

Hope is the light in your being which enlightens your heart and makes it ready to sing.

I've got to really try and manage my patience out there.

The land of milk and honey, they say it is the land of money.

When you smile it's like the sun coming up.

Whether you are out in the world, or you're at home, you are simply an instrument of God's love in your universe.

To do a drawing for a painting most often means doing something very sketchy and schematic and then later making it polished.

The end of the creation is that the creation might glorify [God]. Now what is glorifying God, but a rejoicing at that glory he has displayed?

Sometimes just a smile on our face can help to make this world a better place.

Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name.