I've carved out a career for myself really as a writer.

If you're a lame brain, then you're a lame brain. I can't help that.

My mother says I was two-and-a-half when I started playing. My father was a minister, and when he went to church in the morning, she would put on Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Cole Porter records. I'd crawl up on the piano stool, sit on a phone book and play.

In our minds, love and lust are really separated. It's hard to find someone that can be kind and you can trust enough to leave your kids with, and isn't afraid to throw her man up against the wall and lick him from head to toe.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

Muhammad, my friend, I'm getting very scared. Teach me how to love my brothers who don't know the law, and what about the deal on the flying trapeze?

From in the shadow she calls. And in the shadow she finds a way, finds a way. And in the shadow she crawls, clutching her faded photograph. My image under her thumb. Yes with a message for my heart. She’s been everybody else’s girl maybe one day she’ll be her own.