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

The only music I don’t like is bad music.

I’m just a musician and a record producer.

A lot of the guys were like that – Oscar Pettiford – they just took me under their wing, and that’s why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.

Let’s not get too full of ourselves. Let’s leave space for God to come into the room.

The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.

Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. ‘Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.’

I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs.

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

Making a record is like painting a school bus with a toothbrush.

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You’re dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That’s the soul of a country.

I’ve met every freak in the business.

Every day you must be able to say, I have to get up because I’m needed by someone. As long as you have that, you’re healthy.

We stole a box of honey jars one time and went out in the woods and took care of the whole box. I don’t think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again.

Prince a true artist in every sense of the world. Gone way too soon.

What happens when you get a big break and you haven’t prepared yourself? That becomes the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. I see it happen all the time.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

Bad things are always going to happen in life; People will eventually hurt you, but you can’t use that as an excuse to hurt someone back.

The world suffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.

There’s nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.

Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.

She thinks she bad but I’m better.

Free yourself from the illusion of good and bad days. Labeling time makes us nostalgic of the past and demanding of the future. There is only here and now. Let it be.

Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame! you give love, a bad name.