When I was four, I started taking lessons from my mom. That's pretty much how I started.

Music is a thing where, the more vocabulary you gather, the more you can express yourself.

My dad would play me all of these records: Miles Davis records, John Coltrane records, Bill Evans records, a lot of jazz records. My first exposure to music was listening to jazz records.

The main thing about the word jazz, is that it's very limiting to what people are doing.

My mom was a musician, and my dad had this passion for music. That's kind of how a lot of their relationship was built. When I came around, I was constantly exposed to music.

I had an opportunity to start going around the world when I was about 18 years old. So, I did. That's one of the things that I was doing.

Hearing Oscar Peterson was something that resonated within me. There are so many musicians I've been fortunate to play with. The people that inspire me are the people I play with.

Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those same values, some of the same techniques.

A lot of people love to do affirmations first thing in the morning - to keep themselves feeling peppy and positive.

My life has often been described as 'from rags to riches' but in fact, the Ross's were never raggedy.

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

I knew the poor, I knew the hideous death they die, when famine lays its bleak hand on the door; I knew the rich, sated with merriment, who yet are sad.

is this fragile love/ a way/ to say/ goodbye

I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation.

I don't know, maybe she [Hillary Clinton] short-circuited when she wiped out 35,000 emails.

Don't you ever orget that in the end, our future is tied to people, that it's more about ideas than a tax.