Quotes on Music

I'm always in search of something, in search of losing myself to the music.

You want to say as little as you can and get the most punch out of it, always with the knowledge that people are not in the theater to listen to your music so much as to respond to the movie. You're a part of that experience.

I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

I'm playing deep African music.

There are so many things and so many aspects to gay life that I've discovered and so many things to write about. I have a new life, and I have a new take on dance music because of that life.

Music is the purest form of art... therefore true poets...seek to express the universe in terms of music. The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside.

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.

There is no art without intention.

There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

You're standing onstage in a sold-out arena with people singing your music, and you feel like the loneliest person in the world. Because here's a party that, essentially, it's for you. And you still somehow feel like you don't belong there. Those people all have their lives and go back home.

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.

To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.

A music serves truth up to you in a really interesting way that allows you to luxuriate in its beauty and, at the same time, to hopefully see yourself in its fragility.