You know, I feel as comfortable in an uncomfortable situation as I do when things are going smoothly.

Well, my dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years.

I do the things I like to do. It's sort of a bigger version of having more than one hobby.

New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse...

With a tone so rich, I would never be afraid of the dark. Steinway is the only and the best!

There are people who can't stand me, they say, 'God, he makes me sick', or, 'He's creepy', but it doesn't affect me too badly.

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

With imagination, I'll get there.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

Safety's just danger, out of place.

In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded.

Protect the ears of your heart, rather than being drawn in each day like the fading tides that dance daily with the moon.

I am going to eliminate every unnecessary job-killing regulation. They're choking our businesses to death.

Too many players are so afraid to do anything that they seldom venture to do anything.

We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection.

We have an infinite number of reasons to be happy, and a serious responsibility not be serious.

This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and... if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life.

I wrote almost all of it in the deepest hope and conviction. Sifting my thoughts and choosing my words. Trying to say what was true. And I'll tell you frankly, that was wonderful.

Lesbianism has always seemed to me an extremely inventive response to a shortage of men, but otherwise not worth the trouble.

My major regret in life is that my childhood was unnecessarily lonely.

Love, to her ear, was but a name, Combin'd with vanity and shame; Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all Bounded within the cloister wall.