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

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.

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.

I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.

A good painter is to paint two main things, men and the working of man’s mind.

I want to be a Renaissance Woman. I want to paint, and I want to write, and I want to act, and I just want to do everything.

I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.

If you don’t like the scene you’re in, if you’re unhappy, if you’re lonely, if you don’t feel that things are happening, change your scene. Paint a new backdrop.

To paint is the most terrific thing that there is, but to do it well is very difficult.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

I paint flowers so they will not die.