J. K. Rowling

If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justifications.

What’s to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time, and I am quite proud that I got out of that.

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all-in which case, you fail by default.

Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.

We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.

I was never interested in singing in the church or school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.

I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.

The prospect of having to sit through one of Rachmaninov’s extended symphonies or piano concertos tends, quite frankly, to depress me. All those notes, and to what end?

The blues comes right back to a person’s feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don’t know nothing about the blues, please believe me.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.

Kinship doesn’t come from skin color. It’s in your soul and your mind.

The reason I write music is that I feel it’s a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence.

It’s important to find your own voice and do something of your own.

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

Musicians tell me, if what I’m doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

We all played bad before we played good.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.