L.A. is kind of laid back, but New York, everybody is out there for that buck, you know.

As a matter of fact they'd blacken us down. I guess there's a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he had his idea of what we look like.

I knew exactly what I was, and there was no hang-up with me. None whatsoever. The fact that the pigment of my skin maybe being lighter brown than other people of my race, maybe some of them, but you know our race has all colors.

It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.

When Byrd came out of there, he had written a lot things while he was in the hospital.

It taught me something. It taught you your craft.

I just went to Harvard a little while, because I graduated from Armstrong High School in Washington and then I went up there but I didn't stay that long because I went into show business.

If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer you must go to college. But if you want to be a musician or such, study your craft. Study music.

You know, times change and the elements change along with it. The elements of success. And my son's very successful. He's doing very well. And I have a younger daughter who sings.

Bud Johnson, God rest his soul of fame, a tenor saxophonist. Bud was always a big, big, big booster of mine and he always when I first met Bud in Pittsburgh when he came through there, he heard me sing and he wanted me to come to Chicago.

I'm used to hearing myself. My own voice.

When you're playing music, say for instance, you're playing a part of the band and you're looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand. This way, it's up and it goes right on out to the audience, you know?

I don't have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch. I'm glad I don't have perfect pitch because perfect pitch can drive you crazy.

I think a song that's got something to say. I'm not much on gimmicks. I never have been because they don't last. But I like a song that tells a story and has some meat to it, you know, that means something.

Piano should be the one. Yeah, because that's your basis. Everything is right there in front of you.

Oh, yeah. I know Dizzy. For years he's been my buddy way, way, way back. Dizzy is one of the most astute guys and one of the most learned guys in the world and knows exactly what he's doing musically.

L.A. is kind of laid back, but New York, everybody is out there for that buck, you know.

My youngest daughter sings. She's going to be very good. She's graduated from Music School and she's been working down around and getting her feet wet, you know. I had her out with me for a year just showing her the ropes a little bit, but she's going to be all right.

I was still in school at the time and Cab was very popular and everybody was doing Cab Calloway so I did.

I'm a firm believer and I think my religion is inside.

You can't sing about love unless you know about it.

I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn't think of it as being tough and things like that.

Today the kids that are out now they make a hit record and they put them right out on the stage with 10,000 people out there and they don't know anything about the business yet.

In America, every female under fifty calls herself a girl.

What's distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn't care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn't worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call 'the problem of dirty hands.'

A musical film is my idea of heaven. You can pre-record, you don't have to sing live. Singing live was the bit I hated the most. I never felt like a confident singer.

A lot of people who are overweight - not everyone, but a lot of people - are dealing with issues such as emotional issues, stress issues. They become stress eaters and emotional eaters.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

It is my practice to try to understand how valuable something is by trying to imagine myself without it.

My first experiences of Colorado travel have been rather severe. At Greeley, I got a small upstairs room at first, but gave it up to a married couple with a child, and then had one downstairs no bigger than a cabin, with only a canvas partition. It was very hot, and every place was thick with black flies.

Ideals are the world's masters.

I'm going to make an appearance in professional wrestling, but it won't be for the WWE. If I put wrestling boots and wrestling trunks on one last time - and I'm going to - it's going to be done by me and me only.

Material blessings when they pay beyond the category of need are weirdly fruitful of headache.

I spend a lot of time talking to women interested in office about how they can make it work.

I want to hold government accountable and help create a more efficient and effective government.

If you're in a company, you're dancing from 9 a.m. till 7 in the evening, and then you go home and get in a hot tub and get some Epsom salts and try to get your body goin' again. There's no social life, no anything.

I never ever paid attention to any election.

Don't search for anything except peace. Try to calm the mind. Everything else will come on its own.

If there's anything I have learned since returning to Congress, it's that talk is still cheap, progress is still slow, and our liberties continue to erode every day.

As a child, I'd help my mum cook, and it was ridiculous - she had the correct gadget or utensil for everything. 'Stop! Don't use that, I have exactly the right utensil.' After I left home, I survived on cup-a-meals and never saw myself as being like her. Now I've become her.

Helicopters are multi mission machines one of the most important missions they have are saving lives.

I want to clear up a few myths about myself. People have written that I was a kindergarten teacher and a former Miss Texas, and neither is true.

When you go into a bar, there are hundreds and hundreds of cameras in that bar - many of them installed by that bar. They might be checking something or taking a picture of you.

I'm based in L.A., mainly. I'm pretty much there a lot of the time doing work.

When you're eight years old nothing is your business.

It is great seeing the fruits of your labor. The joy I have in watching my daughters with their kids is great, because they're doing a wonderful job, and the kids are fantastic.

Weezer's 'El Scorcho.' I'm in a '90s cover band called 'Straight 2 Video' with members of the crew from 'The Vampire Diaries,' and we played this song at our wrap party. I grin from ear to ear every time I scream this song in my car.