Being at college, I think that's the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.

I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.

I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.

The biggest honor of my career was when I won R&B Artist of the Year back in the 1970s. I look at that as a major honor.

Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.

I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.

I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.