I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me. And also it's to me the greatest instrument. I shouldn't say that, but I believe that this is the only instrument I can really feel happy about playing.

When I was first aware that I couldn't read music I didn't know I couldn't read because I could play the music that was in front of me.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

You could play probably a span of 50 years of me playing St. Louis Blues, and most of the time it will be different every time.

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.