There are a lot of aspiring singers who are not paid attention to because they don't look like a fashion model.

Music is a work in progress. On a record, it gets frozen in time. And it's oddly unnatural.

This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know.

I think if the United States gave anything to culture at large in the 20th century, the most important contribution made was the popular song.

People have often written about me, that I did this for this reason and that for that reason, and theyre usually 98 percent wrong.

I never thought I'd write, because I'd never written anything in my whole life.

Ninety-nine percent of singing is listening and hearing, and so then 1 percent of it is singing.