I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows.

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

In this country, don't forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There's no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it's the worst kind of hell for those who love you.