Nobody's going to sell 10 million records by not working hard.

I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.

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.

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.

If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don't have their assistants and entourage, it's funny to see what happens.

I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I've been a teenager - I mean, musically, creatively.

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.