I'd just as soon be on a good Steinway or Yamaha just as well.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.

Nowadays it seems to me nobody takes trouble about anything, especially writing songs.

At the risk of being a fuddy-duddy I don't have a computer; I don't have e-mail; and I really don't need something in my house that I would be sitting in front of for hours.

So I have a friend who works for me once a week. She's got e-mail, so anybody that must send an e-mail, they send it to her and she faxes it to me. Sounds like a long way of doing things, but it works for me.

Well it's because the record companies are pumping away with their commercial stuff. I think it's a shame.

I like minor tunes.

I'm trying to get the record that I made at my birthday party last year, trying to get that out, and the lawyers are diddling around with it and it probably won't be out until next year. I don't know.

I need to get up and walk around and keep my knees from getting bad, which is what's happening.

Boy, I'm just quietly doing my thing, and I hope they'll look around and get my record out.

I would really hate to have e-mail. It's bad enough with all the mail I get.

There are a million good tunes.

I'm not too fond of changing things into waltzes, but sometimes that works.

I'd just as soon be on a good Steinway or Yamaha just as well.

I love to play in the different keys like B or F sharp, or keys that most people don't play in, because they have a better resonance or something. I'm really not fond of F and C. I just stay away from those if I can.

So if I think of something in my head I don't have to do it. If I can't do I don't do it, I do something else.

As long as I can still be on my own and do my own thing and be working full time, it's great.

The house is in turmoil with records on every space. In the kitchen and in the dining room is covered with records. I don't have a big enough house to accommodate everything.

Although I do feel that with a show like ours we ourselves are getting a lot more young listeners at concerts.

It's awful to have to, but I've started thinking about that, you know. 86. I'm thinking, well, maybe I might make it to 90. At least I'd like to have my brains.

That's something Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you're not feeling right about what you're doing and you play a minor tune it all comes back, falls into place. I don't know if that's true, but I do it.

By the way, I got a Grammy, which was a big thrill.

I have a West Coast rhythm section and a New York rhythm section. I've got them spread out all over the place.

My hands look terrible but I can do anything I want to do, so, you know, I just think I'm playing all around with more good taste and not dashing up and down the piano.

How you recover from what life's throwing at you is what matters.

Great men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

I get invited to many more literary festivals than I used to because I'm associated with 'Slumdog Millionaire,' the brand. Many more doors have opened up for me as a result of the global success of the film, although I believe that I'm the same person that existed before it.

I would prefer being in a hard battle; however, I will be satisfied with whatever happens to me in this war, if only the country comes out of this peril safe and to the satisfaction of the finest and best government on earth.

Cunning has little honor.

To be a pleasant person, you would at least need to see the point of being a pleasant person, or have it explained to you at some sort of 'finishing school' where you could actually learn the laws of propriety and the skills of appearing well-adapted, easygoing and attractively trouble free. But where do you learn these things? I don't know.

I think original voices get noticed. But most importantly, I think you should have a story to tell.

The art of walking is at once suggestive of the dignity of man. Progressive motion alone implies power, but in almost every other instance it seems a power gained at the expense of self-possession.

My whole life growing up, both my parents told me not to swear like a sailor. After college, I recall there was finally a time where I swore, and neither one of them was correcting me, and I felt so relieved. I thought, finally; I can finally be myself and not get yelled at.

The Herbs ought to be distilled when they are in their greatest vigor, and so ought the Flowers also.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest misperceptions the American public harbors is that Katrina was a week-long catastrophe. In truth, it's better to view it as an era.

They talk about Amen Corner but there's so much more to it than what meets the eye on this golf course.

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in the writing.

I got lucky. I won the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition in 1977 while I was still at San Francisco State.

Hate is the revenge of a coward intimidated.

I'm not a collector.

You know how only you can insult your own family? That's how I feel about Florida.

Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature.

I long ago lost track of the number of times the Obama administration has assured everyone that its vacuum-cleaner approach to electronic surveillance does not threaten the privacy or the rights of Americans.

As a kid, I played my share of football in the street or in a vacant lot.

Every man is a hero to his alias.

I'm never going to change who I am for the UFC.

My sister and brother are both writers as well. We are constantly discussing story and plot lines. And I love to discuss story ideas with my husband.