When I make records, I never listen to stuff after it's done. Ever.

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized.

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized and there's just no outlet, there's no venue for it, in terms of media.

Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave well enough alone. And that's a lifelong quest.

I look at the artistic process as like experiencing the world, channeling it through your personality and sending it back out there. That's the process.

Music is just kind of an expression of who I am. It's what I do.

You never get it figured out. You just keep playing.

I tend to play in a way that feels natural to me. To me that's authentic for myself. I play by where I'm led by some sense of where I feel I'm supposed to be.

Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.

To me, the object of practicing is to allow you to play what you hear. But you're always hearing new things, so you never get to the end of it.

I'll just sit at the piano a lot an play like through different chord exercises and kind of just throwing my hands down on the piano from one chord to the next to see what happens.

There's nothing I can do to erase the shadow of misery and despair from the eyes looking back at me from the photos [that I took in Afghanistan].

The future you have, tomorrow, won't be the same future you had, yesterday.

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

Every opportunity has challenges when you overcome it turns to rewards.

Making a big commercial movie is hard when you think about how many of them flop.

The venture industry is both quite vibrant and quite competitive.

A real woman needs quotes by dead men to get through the day.

I don't think the Democrats need a silver bullet.

When the house is blown up, there’s nothing to shut or open.

I like frogs. I am not crazy about their legs in a buffet, but I like their casual approach to life.