There are notes between notes, you know.

What was the competition? Well, I remember this Puerto Rican who came out in a short skirt and a gun.

There are notes between notes, you know.

When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice.

Good management has helped me find much of the success I've got.

Horns always influenced me more than voices.

I don't think I ever modeled myself after a singer. I've more or less copied the styles of horn-tooters right from the start.

I just get onstage and sing. I don't think about how I'm going to do it - it's too complicated.

I just quit in the third year of high school and started singing at amateur hours.

I just sing. I sing whatever I can.

The night I won at the Apollo, I was only doing it for the $10.

When I sing a tune, the lyrics are important to me. Most of the standard lyrics I know well. And as soon as I hear an arrangement, I get ideas, kind of like blowing a horn. I guess I never sing a tune the same way twice.

You have to have a little soul in your singing. The kind of soul that's in the spirituals. That's why I'd like to include spiritual material in the sets I do. It's a part of my life.

I stand by the principle of honesty, fair play, and trustworthiness.

You do a job; your show gets canceled. You get used to it.

I was cast in a film toward the end of high school. Even then, I wasn't sure.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

I am a big outliner. For my adult book, 'The Visibles,' I did not outline, and it took me two years to write because I just didn't outline, and I had no path.

I feel I'm functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I'm trying to get the world accurate.

I like places where you can dance to crazy music, like Bedlam or Eastern Bloc in the East Village.

The best way to remain in your relationship is to keep other people out of your relationship.

I'm finding writing very fascinating.

I started finding hearts in things - whether it was like, a tree I was passing, a straw wrapper on the ground; I think the heart has one continuous line, which is very powerful.

In my mind, I'm writing for everybody.

In China, I realized that if you visit often enough and learn the language, you will be assimilated, but you'll still be kept at arm's length; you'll always be looked on as a foreigner.

Nothing makes men sharper than want.

When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down and wrote 1,700 pages of sheer psychotherapy drivel. It was first person, and there would be pages about wet socks and cold feet.

I've always gravitated towards songwriting that happens easily and spontaneously, because those have always been my best songs.

I've got my feet firmly on the ground, I can't see life changing too much. I reckon more girls will talk to me at college and more people will look at me, but they know me for who I am.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

One of the most important aspects that feed a thriving economy is successful businesses, so the more startups that take off, the better the financial picture is for everyone.

Love is sacrifice.

We need to work for a day when police shootings are rare and not the stuff of our daily news.

I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else.

If I am to judge others, I should be subject to be judged. You make your bed, you must lie in it.

None of God's Creatures absolutely consider'd are in their own Nature Contemptible; the meanest Fly, the poorest Insect has its Use and Virtue.

Earth was not built to serve the needs of humans.