“A person’s age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.”

It’s easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.

I improvised my life along the way – I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.

Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important.

I look back and say, “This must have been somebody else.” I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.

Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.

Excellence isn’t an act, it’s a habit.

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.

Editing while you’re writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

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.

My son is a hip-hop producer.

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.

Time in which we are living today is a time of uncertainty and unpredictability.

I think love can happen at any age. It has no age.

If you ask that question again ma’am, I will have to ask you your age.

I don’t think I am a star; I consider myself like any other girl who is of my age. Others may be working in office and doing different jobs. Similarly I don’t think I am doing something different. I am also working.

I grew up in Davenport, Iowa, but I moved to Santa Clarita, California, when I was 6.

The BJP has decided that politics is for values and ideals, and for this, an age limit has been decided. I think that for democracy and for political parties, this is a good indicator. It will be good if all the political parties adhere to this, thereby strengthening India’s democracy.

I’ve been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line.

Now at 47, 48 I am expected to do ten times better work that I did when I was 24.