“My son is a hip-hop producer.”

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that’s the bottom line.

When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out.

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.

You cannot get an A if you’re afraid of getting an F.

It’s amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don’t have anything else to do.

I was the most subtle person in the world.

The relationship with a producer and an artist is really special. It’s got to be love and respect, amazing mutual respect for each other, because that’s what makes a good record.

I’m a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.

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

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!

Billy Strayhorn wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy to me is the boss of the arrangers.

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

I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you’re supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.

Whenever a woman would come too close, I would cut her off. Part of that was vindictive – but that was totally subconscious.

When you’re over the hill, that’s when you pick up speed.

My job is to show and tell. If I get better at showing and telling then presumably I get hired more.

To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man.

I do think that acting is such an unpredictable job, and you’re away a lot. If you’re dating somebody outside the industry, it can be hard to understand that.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

I just sing and write songs and wear what I want. It’s quite a good job really. If I wanted to I suppose I could become more of a fashion icon, but singing is my thing.

Social marketing is now a 24-7 job.

I would not be a good mother. I mean, I love being an aunt to my niece and nephew. And I used to want to, like, adopt 10 kids – because I had friends who were adopted, and I thought that was the coolest thing, to be chosen. But again, my job is too selfish.

I made education the highest priority of my campaign – actually education and jobs – and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.