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

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That's how I see my voice.

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

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.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.