This world is not a platform where you will hear Thalberg-piano-playing. It is a piano manufactory, where are dust and shavings and boards, and saws and files and rasps and sandpapers. The perfect instrument and the music will be hereafter. – Henry Ward Beecher
What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man. – Ray Charles
My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery – which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove. – Poppy Z. Brite
