Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.
Unfortunately, America doesn't have a minister of culture, and I don't understand why. It's really bad for young people.
Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.
I lost my mother when I was 7 and they put her in a mental hospital. My brother and I watched her being taken away in a strait jacket. That's something you never forget. And my stepmother was like in the movie 'Precious.' I couldn't handle it. So I said to myself, 'I don't have a mother. I don't need one. I'm going to let music be my mother.'
Seattle is like a global gumbo, a melting pot with all kinds of people - the rich, the poor, white people, some Chinese, Filipino, Jewish and black people - they're all here.
You have to know that your real home is within.
Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
I travel like a maniac. I travel more than anyone I know. I love learning the languages.
I never cared about money or fame, and I don't care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows.
Few rappers realize the genre sprang from West African griots through Delta slave songs to jazz poetry and the comedic trash talk of 'the dozens.'
You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F.
The only justification for looking down on anyone, is that you're going to stop and pick them up.
When I was 14, I would sit up in my room and write till my eyes would bleed.
I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens.
I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.
If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.
I'm Pisces with Leo rising. The Pisces part is the dreamer. The Leo says, 'Let's execute.'
I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying “Ain’t that the truth
To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft.
I've never been bored in my life, man. I've never been bored or lonely. Are you kidding? No way! I'm an orchestrator, a musician, a producer. I love everything. I've studied languages from Farsi to Greek to French, Swedish, Russian... How can you get bored?
I hope that on my tombstone it says 'Born 1933, died 2043.' I hope that's my legacy.
I live on the Internet.
After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.
I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me.
I think the attraction of 'American Idol' is about the basic human nature attitude that is, 'We can put you up there. But we can take you down.'
Melody is king, and don't you ever forget it. Lyrics appear to be out front, but they're not; they're just an accompanying factor. If they're good, you're really in good shape. Lyrics are written to be rewritten.
I was rapping in 1939. It's old. The roots are complex. And kids don't know.
When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you're talking about. Thank God I was ready for it.
