“If I don’t have a mother, I’ll let music be my mother.”

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.

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!

I’m a Queens boy at the end of the day.

My mother was the most creative, fantastic person and would come up with great things for us to do. She’d buy art supplies and all of us would sit around painting. I was lucky.

I’ve got what my mother’s got – however bloody you are feeling you can put on the most amazing show of happiness.

We go to church on Sunday and then have family dinner. My mom usually cooks, and most of the time, it’s protein and something else. She will ask us kids what we want!

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.

My mom, Nellie, got me a rosary at church. I don’t use it to pray before a competition. I’ll just pray normally to myself, but I have it there in case.

I am not, at the end of the day, a mother, a wife, a writer, an activist, a friend. I am a child of God. That’s who I was when I came into this world and who I’ll be when I leave it. No one can take that from me.

I realized I didn’t just want to parent children in my own little home but to mother the whole world. What’s the point of gaining influence if you’re not going to use it?