I don't trip on that much. I just like to enjoy life and be happy.

DJs and people in the street know what they like.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

Soul has no musical geographical or racial boundaries.

I was being an artist, being sensitive and technical as artists are. I'm sure Leonardo Da Vinci did that. Artists don't always feel the same as others feel about their work.

Now I get exposure first with people directly in the clubs. This is a unique situation for me.

I've been sampled so much and I'm glad it's happened, it's a great compliment.

What we call soul has been around a long time. It comes out of a particular culture that is African in origin, but influenced by 250 years of slavery, as well as other forms of racial oppression.

Artists don't always know. Almost every song I ever recorded that was a hit at the majors that the promotional people picked I didn't think it would be a hit. I was wrong every time!

I'm celebrating my 40th year in show business this year.

I was with PolyGram; that was the big label that I was with for the longest, like 12 years.

A lot of the hip hop artists don't write music. They write words.

The majors, they have to control the distribution, the record outlets, the radio and, in some cases, even the venues. And downloading and pirating have also put pressure on the majors.

It's a wonderful feeling just being in this creative motif.

I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.

I'd definitely love to play in Nashville again. That would be really good.

Having good health, being able to breathe and be happy, that's one of the most beautiful gifts. On top of that, I have the gift to play music and make people happy through that. I'm just telling you from my heart, I'm so in love with life.

I still look good. I'm trippin', but people tell me that all the time. So check it out, I'm 63, and still kicking. I've been putting records out every year.

I don't like rap that you can't understand. The youth is so quick and alert.

Back in the day, I used to be in the studio recording 20 hours a day. And that was all of the time. I still record a lot of hours, but I don't go as long as I used to.

I don't trip on that much. I just like to enjoy life and be happy.

When I was recording from '70 to '82, I always played piano and laid the tracks down. But I used to talk to the other musicians while the track was playing.

You grow and learn a lot about the industry and what happens behind closed doors over the years.

The true beauty of music is that it connects people. It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

I generally sell my records online or at the show. You can undersell the distributor and the stores, and people know what they're getting cause they've just seen you live.

I always had this energy level that made me want to come to New York.

Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.

People in England were coming up to me, saying, My mother and father turned me on to your music. This happened to me 20 years ago. When I was 40 they were saying that.

I think music all the time.

I don't think I'm really so unique. If every black person looked at their life they would quickly discover that they have been influenced by every type of music prevalent in America.

Only a certain number of people go to a store over the period of a year. When a person sees my record on the shelf, it eliminates someone else's record from being sold. It's about continuing to try to find new ways to sell records.

Some people really trip on success or popularity. My friends would talk to me about that, about tripping on all this stuff, but you know what I tripped on? I started buying property.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.