“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.”

My grandmother had this high-tech security system – a rusty nail she used to lock the door.

The only music I don’t like is bad music.

I’m just a musician and a record producer.

A lot of the guys were like that – Oscar Pettiford – they just took me under their wing, and that’s why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.

Let’s not get too full of ourselves. Let’s leave space for God to come into the room.

The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.

Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. ‘Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.’

I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs.

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

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

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You’re dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That’s the soul of a country.

I’ve met every freak in the business.

Every day you must be able to say, I have to get up because I’m needed by someone. As long as you have that, you’re healthy.

We stole a box of honey jars one time and went out in the woods and took care of the whole box. I don’t think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again.

Prince a true artist in every sense of the world. Gone way too soon.

Sometimes you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel until you’ve learned how to live in the dark.

Loving myself is a skill I am still learning to master.

You were an ocean and I never did learn to breathe underwater.

I’ve learned that by doing things, things get done.

I’m still learning to love the parts of me you taught me to hate.

Two orders of mankind are the enemies of church and state; the king without clemency, and the holy man without learning.

It’s important to get in the habit of growing as a human being, developing and refining leadership and management skills and entrepreneurial instincts and changing to accommodate the times.

In the beginning, yes I did go back… (but) I learned that if it’s continued abusive, you just can’t stay there. When guys are young, they make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect, but, if they do it more than once, then it’s definitely a habit