You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.

A person's age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.

Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.

Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.

After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever.

It was messed up, because in 1947 my family moved to Seattle and I had to get up at 5:00 o'clock in the morning to catch the ferry back to Bremerton every morning because I was Boys Club president.

The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious.