This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.

By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.

If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.

This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.

The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.

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

When I choose material for an album all these songs I grew up with pour into my head.