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

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.

I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I've dreamed.

I'm just human, I have faults like anyone

Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I'm singing her music or not.

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.