Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.

I'm sorry that I did not become the world's first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.

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

I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be

When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.

Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.