Coming out as a Barbra Streisand fan was way more embarrassing than coming out as a lesbian. To be an artist of my generation willing to be unhip - artists were supposed to be like cowboys.
It was probably when I met Jeff Hamilton, the drummer I've been working with for the last 20 years. He's the one who brought Ray Brown to hear me sing at a restaurant in my hometown.
When you drive by Radio City and you see your name up there and it's only 'your' name. I just went 'ooh'. I thought this is really like looking at another person.
There will be a competition for the memorial. And then it can be developed with trees, with planting. It can become a very beautiful place protected from the streets, because it is below. And it can be something very moving and very private.
It's about how to bring together the seemingly contradictory aspects of the memorial, which is about a tragedy and how it changed the world, but also about creating a vital and beautiful city of the 21st century.
Everyone has ideas. They may be too busy or lack the confidence or technical ability to carry them out. But I want to carry them out. It is a matter of getting up and doing it.
What I often do is just think of a completely obtuse thing to do, almost the wrong thing to do. That often works because you start a different approach, something no one has tried.
What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.
With Los Angeles, it's kind of a love-hate thing. Sometimes I think it's marvelous, and sometimes I think it's a dump. It's so fake and I can't deal with how fake it is.
We used to have our own plane with the band's name on the side. It was a dream come true. You drive to a local airport. There's none of this checking in stuff; you just get on the plane.
I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else.
I worry about being a fogy and just writing for orchestras. Like, really, I should be doing more electronic stuff, I feel. Laptops as part of the orchestra, and installation sound, and speakers.
One thing that changed when I moved upstate was that I became interested in different materials. I started making the stone benches because I was seeing rocks.
I wanted to support things that are helpful to people and maybe bash what I think is dangerous. So I switched from being everybody to being myself.
I don't think I could have ever had a career as a pianist because I never ever wanted to play the notes the way they were written, I was too sloppy to learn them quite right.
Some acts are tricky. Eartha Kitt was tricky in a wonderful, old-style way. She did yoga on the piano and put her hands over her ears when the other acts were on.
I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition." (Said to Leopold Mozart)
I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son (W A Mozart)is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition.
IT'S NO FUN WATCHING PEOPLE WOUND THEMSELVES SO THAT THEY CAN HOLE UP, NURSE THEMSELVES BACK TO HEALTH, AND REPEAT THE CYCLE. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.
MORE THAN ONCE I'VE AWAKENED WITH TEARS RUNNING DOWN MY CHEEKS. I HAVE HAD TO THINK WHETHER I WAS CRYING OR WHETHER IT IS INVOLUNTARY, LIKE DROOLING.
I remember wearing overcoats, hiding in the bushes outside of Abbey Road Studios, waiting for the traffic to clear. As it did, we would drop our overcoats and run out on to the cross walk and strike our poses.
