[My mother is] a half-Chinese, half-Jamaican woman, who grew up the ninth of nine kids, getting a law degree from Harvard. Academically brilliant, but also incredibly strong-willed and ethical. My mother was like that, my sister is, and my wife is too.

I sing because I’ve forgotten how to scream.

We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes, 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans' musicians. It is called the Musicians' Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

I'm not a movie star. People know me, but they don't necessarily know what they know me for. I get recognised, but it's not like Justin Bieber. It's a nice thing, people are cool.

I'm a musician. Anything I've done as an actor has come from that.

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

I think women like to laugh, to have doors opened for them, to have a man walk behind them when they're going up steps, and in front of them when they're going down steps. As chauvinistic as that may sound, it's in my bones.