“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band’s lead singer, Eric Burdon. “So you’re the honky,” she said, “who stole my song and got a hit out of it?”

Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.

I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I’ve done my whole life, without thought.

Music is the center of my life.

That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things – all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.

Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.

I believe in racial memory too. I’m sure I’ve got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.

It is difficult to retain your standards with the pressure of trying to make money, which always has its rules. It’s hard to walk the tightrope of doing what you think is your best and making money at it.

I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.

I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.

It’s a good time for black people to be alive.

If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.

My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.

It’s not easy, though, singing upside down in a headstand on a raised platform with your unfettered breasts hitting you in the chin.

As of now they are still very young so that has come in the form of dress up, make believe and singing songs.

A wise man sings his joy in the closet of his heart.

Is there a short-eared koobish, then?’ Mmmyes …’ said J.Lo. ‘But it is technically not really a koobish. Is more alike a kind of singing pumpkin.’ We had conversations like these all the time, where I just eventually gave up.

He’s not going to let anybody do his singing for him.

And show up in a place I never thought I’d ever be and have kids in the same room singing these songs I’d written so far away. To me, that’s so surreal.

I have a very young brother and sister, and if you can get a kid singing the words to a song after they heard it for the first time, it’s a hit.