I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.

Under my contract with Capitol, I have complete freedom to do just about anything I want in my own way.

You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.

I'm not an intellectual composer.

Any good music must be an innovation.

I've been down there 6 times and there's nothing like Brazilian percussion.

I don't think the record company is aware of it. Because they just bury my albums and don't release them.

I love doing concert music.

That was when the Spanish came in and conquered the Aztecs. I thought that was a clever thing.

I write emotional music.

I was working all the time I was in college. I was working so much that I could hardly do my college work.

I don't know what the problem with Capitol is. Some one's got to wake 'em up. Prod 'em a little bit.

I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.

In a sense, a hit belongs to the person who made it popular, but if a tune is good enough to attain tremendous success, then it certainly deserves more than one version, one treatment, one approach.

I aim my arrangements at what will fit and colorfully frame the song in the best way possible.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

Well, that's the secret of commerciality, a simple style and you stick with it.

I don't try to make 15 musicians sound like two each.

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.

I tend to worry about the minutiae of life. But living in the mountains of Idaho and having retreated from fame, I am more in tune with life.

There are dark shadows on the earth but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

I probably get more inspiration for human stories and idiosyncrasies than I do animal stories.

I tend to just do whatever I want on an album and try to make it work. I'm just adventurous. It's most exciting to be at the edge of your abilities. I want to see how far I can push things.

I didn't grow up with my Kenyan family. I grew up in a small, conservative suburb of Chicago.

I have no regrets at all. I have done quite well for myself. I didn't have a conventional face, but I have done well, and I am proud of it.

My mum says, 'Go with your first instinct,' but this can lead to impulse buying!

Americans should be ashamed of how aflutter they get about Downton Abbey - it's unpatriotic. I seem to remember we fought a revolution so as not to put up with this nonsense, where notions of station are so unforgiving that upper and lower echelons are practically different species.

When I was at school you got an overall general education on many things, even just basic facts.

A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times.

My dad was a really good surfer, and by the time I was 10, he was dragging me out on some good days at Bells. I'd reckon they were solid, 6-foot days, and he'd tell me to wait on the shoulder. I'd see him coming through the barrel, and he'd just scream at me to go. I'd drop in, and he'd give me a hoot from behind - I've always loved it.

I always knew would be some sort of artist, but didn't know what.

I have known for some time that I can meet any man I want but that does not mean that I want to meet anyone. I certainly don't like being forced into situations.

Its hard to determine where lies culpability.

When it comes to the economy, my highest priority as President will be worrying about your job, not saving my own.

Every city and town in America would be bankrupt if they kept their books the way private-sector companies keep their books - because of the obligation cities and towns have taken upon themselves to provide health care for their retirees.

With the enhancements to the security of the passport document itself that biometric technology will bring, it is time to make equivalent enhancements to the process of establishing identity before issuing passports.

I'd like to do a record that doesn't even reference actual places. Because I think it's kind of an open-ended concept. It doesn't have to be taken so literally.

We need comprehensive immigration reform. Dr. King wouldn't be pleased at all to know that there are millions of people living in the shadow, living in fear in places like Georgia and Alabama.

Rescuing women from their burden of unwarranted guilt is going to require 'educational practices and socializing agents' even more effective than the ones that have been relentlessly loading female humans with responsibility for other people's behavior from their earliest childhood.

Most people might just as well buy a share of the whole market, which pools all the information, than delude themselves into thinking they know something the market doesn't.

I'm big on facial expressions, and I'm big on mannerisms, which I find to be hilarious.

If adventure does not wait on the doorstep, climb out through the window

The Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy's problems on its own.