Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.

Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn't recognize my voice.

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.

I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don't think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.