What hurts people a lot is taking humiliation.

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

Drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckless, and that's the trouble.

In the past, so many of my records, really, have been sketches for records that never really got made.

Clint Eastwood said, the only things America has contributed to civilization are the western and jazz. And I don't think westerns are bad, but lots of people make great cinema. But jazz is right there.

Potentially, America is really the greatest, but it's not yet, I don't think. It's too much like an old-fashioned empire, waving the stick and dropping too many bombs on too many people.

I don't want to be a professional cripple. And I don't see the suicide stuff as tragic.