Melody Gardot

People always ask, “Why jazz?” and I’m like “Why not?” It’s kind of like asking Seurat, “Why so many dots?” I imagine if you asked Bjork, “Why the Tibetan bells?” She’d probably be like “That’s just what I heard.” It’s the same thing. This is just the way I see music.

Music activates the brain at a high level.

One of the problems of people who live with pain is that they spend the whole day thinking about it, and it’s exasperating. But even when I am having a bad moment and I can’t get myself together, I get on stage and for an hour or two the pain becomes super-small. It’s about controlling the mind, telling the pain to step aside. Music does that. It’s the most fantastic drug in the world.

Jazz is a sideways glance at music. It’s like being an architect, knowing the basis of design but understanding that the façade can be whatever you dream. I’m a free person. I don’t want to be tied down.

For me an album cover is like a movie poster. I wanted an image that was pure femininity, which could please a sculptor. I went through a lot of suffering. But managing to stand up nude on stage carrying a guitar is a victory.

It became a kind of a game, to remember the things that had happened five minutes ago. I would start making notes about the things I was doing, on an instrument that was foreign to me, the guitar, so it was just a fun way of doing cognitive therapy. I was none the wiser to it until I began to improve and my ability to speak began to come back.

I would like to believe there is a God, but I think it is better to say I’m not sure there is a God and live your life with kindness and respect for people than to say I know there is a God and then do bad things,

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

I think every person should have some faith inside him, in his heart. What matters is not an external display of this faith, but the inner state of the soul.

I believe a man is better anchored who has a belief in the Supreme Being.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would solve most the worlds problems.

I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

Outside the kingdom of the Lord there is no nation which is greater than any other. God and history will remember your judgment.

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

We all die unhealed

A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.

The essence of Buddhism is, if you can, to help others. If not, then at least refrain from hurting others.

One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield.