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

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 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.

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?

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

How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.

Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.

Once I understood Bach’s music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

What is love but a prelude to sorrow with heartache ahead for your goal.

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.

I don’t think I’ll ever act again. I have so many wonderful memories, but those days are over.

If you really want your hair to look good, just don’t wash it for a day. That’s my secret.

My advice to teens is to try and do something that scares you every day because it’s the only way you can test how far you can really go.

At the end of the day, women are a distraction. Whether you realize it or not.

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

I count my blessings every day, quite honestly, because I take nothing for granted.

At the end of the day, they, too, want development of their constituency, state or country.