“Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.”

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.

What happens when you get a big break and you haven’t prepared yourself? That becomes the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. I see it happen all the time.

It’s easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.

A person’s age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.

I improvised my life along the way – I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.

Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important.

I look back and say, “This must have been somebody else.” I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.

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.

Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.

You have to just accept your body. You may not love it all the way, but you just have to be comfortable with it, comfortable with knowing that that’s your body.

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.

It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

By accepting life’s limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won’t let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.