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

I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.

I'm just human, I have faults like anyone

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.

My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.