“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.

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.

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind.

There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.

What a strange scene if the surge of conversation could suddenly ebb like the tide, and show us the real state of people’s minds.

Richard Pryor is, in my mind, the most honest comedian. He bared his soul to people. I think that’s why everybody loved him so much.

Obscenity only comes in when the mind despises and fears the body, and the body hates and resists the mind.

We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.

I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.

What the eye doesn’t see and the mind doesn’t know, doesn’t exist.