"I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, 'Very interesting interpretation!' I thought I was playing it right."

"It's always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you're the same, and they hate you if you're different."

"I've had a hip replacement, I've beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, 'I'm done.'"

"I don't feel a day older when it comes to my approach to music or what gets me off than when I was a teenager. I've always been into different kinds of stuff and when I play I like to play loud. I like my arm hairs to move and I like my body to vibrate 'cause I like the feel of it; I'm still a teenager at heart."

"Singing well has always been important to me, but the most important factor is the connection to the audience."

"Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd it must be communicated by contagion."

"It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes, not from example."

"The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us."