Photos are profound because they have such short lives. They are more like fingerprints, dead leaves, rain puddles, or the corpses of flies.

When you say you're doing an opera, it's like when you're a seven-year-old and say, 'I'm off to Washington, Dad.' You kind of go, 'Sure. Sure you are, son.'

The piano has been drinking, not me.

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.

Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.

He said, I'm better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.

I never looked at music as a serious ven­ture. There was very little encouragement from my family. I didn't have anybody to entertain, so it was hard to get motivated.