I'd been in love before - I was always in love.

I don't deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn't deserve that, either. So I'll keep it.

The people who make it to the top - whether they're musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos - are addicted to their calling ... [they] are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.

I used to practice piano for hours, and now, with a synthesizer, you can input the music and the machine perfects the song. That's why we have so many people in the music business who should be plumbers. They don't really understand music because they haven't been trained.

I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.

I chose the trombone because the trombone players in the marching band got to be up front with the majorettes (because of the slides) and I loved that!