Aloft and Alow

I’m happy to be alive, I’m happy to be who I am.

We just know inside that we’re queens. And these are the crowns we wear.

These flutes are about seven thousand years old. The holes are in the same place where they are on woodwinds today.

The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai, the biggest factory in the world is in China, the largest oil refinery is in India, the largest investment fund in the world is in Abu Dhabi, the largest Ferris wheel in the world is in Singapore.

One of my favorite times in life is after we’ve played the gig and we are driving home, tired and happy and contented. Soft conversation and companionship.

I’ve been imitated so well I’ve heard people copy my mistakes.

It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, but neither one is a really a good time.

To read too many books is harmful? Typical of something Mao Zedong would say.

You can have everything you want in life if you just help other people get what they want.

Two people are inside us, the artist and the technician. You’re born an artist and then you have to grow the technician.

I cannot tell you how happy and in love with everything I am.

I play music with good people so I can be inspired and so that I can inspire them.

So, are you praying to the Jewish Jesus, the baby Jesus in golden fleece diapers, the bilingual Mexican Jesús, the grown up Jesus or the ninja Jesus?

When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the luster of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist. Akhenaton

God said to the angels, “I am going to create a beautiful land watered by a silvery river, with trees full of delicious dates, and I shall call this land Egypt. ” And the angels said, “Lord, don’t you think this is a little unfair to the rest of the world?” And God said, “Just wait till you see whom I am giving them for neighbors.”

If paper beats rock, rock beats scissors and scissors beats paper, what beats everyone? A redhead.

You feel touched and honored and alive when you give to someone.

Learning is exciting and it keeps you young.

Happiness doesn’t come from applause. Happiness comes from believing that you have done something good and meaningful.

Why did the blonde smile in a lightning storm? Because she knew that god was taking her photograph.

Are you not thinking what I’m not thinking?

Humility may be the mother of all the other virtues.

Or is it courage? Is courage the mother of all virtues? Hard to say. What do you think?

Or gratitude? Is gratitude the mother of all virtues?

You have to be very courageous sometimes to have a positive attitude, because many foolish people assume that anyone with a positive attitude is naïve, uneducated, stupid, and there are a lot of foolish people, many of them rich and powerful.

I am comfortable telling people what my opinions are, but I have absolutely no need to convert them. À chacun son goût. I hope I am quoting that correctly. De gustibus non disputandum. To each his own. Suum cuique. Whatever works for you.

I’ve never felt that I needed a lot of attention, but, then, I’ve never been to a psychiatrist either, so what do I know?

Better to be wise than smart.

You have to keep on living, even if it kills you.

If we all followed the Book of Leviticus, half the people in the United States would be executed tomorrow.

If there were a god, what would she think about the phrase, “holy war in the holy land?”

Doctor, I’ve been bitten on the leg by a werewolf! Did you put anything on it? No, he seemed to like it as it was.

Geek alert: Calculus and alcohol don’t mix. Don’t drink and derive.

Why did the tomato blush? She saw the salad dressing.

How’s your millinery business going? Oh, it’s sew, sew. Berthe Morissot.

Did you hear about my favorite actress who just severed all her connections? With her knife? No, Witherspoon.

They were going to let her into Harvard, but she spelled Yale with a Six.

Elise corner.

Bachelors have consciences. Married men have wives. Samuel Johnson

Why does Snoop Doggy carry an umbrella? Fo’drizzle.

Hey… are you Jamaican? Because, JAMAICAN me crazy!

I was always too mature for my age – and not very happy. I had no young friends. I wish I could go back to those days. If I could only live it all again, how I would play and enjoy the other girls. What a fool I was. Maria Callas

Her surname is Shure. She said, “Do you think people know it?” and I said, “Are you kidding? To musicians it’s like Coca-Cola or Frigidaire or Kleenex. The thing you have to worry about is that it will become so generic that you will lose the copyright.”

Shurely there must be things that you can do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing.

Kate Russo in Ko Samui, Thailand, playing some standards on the piano.

Cat says, “I would like a Bombay…. Martini,” and the bartender says, “Why the long pause?” and she says, “Oh, I don’t know, I’m just built that way.”

Better be wronged than wrong, better be cheated than cheat.

In my family tree, depending on which day it is, I’m either the bark or the sap.

We can’t add days to our lives, but we can add life to our days.

The more corrupt the country, the more laws it will have.

What do guitar players and a terrorists have in common? They both destroy bridges.

I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results. J.S. Bach

It’s far easier to sing to 250,000 people than it is to sing to 25.

When I sing, I feel like when you’re first in love. It’s more than sex. It’s that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it’s gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

Be quick to pardon, quick to forgive, offer your hand as long as you live.

Being happy at home is the best happiness.

True friends, like Brutus, will stab you in the front.

We were in Glenfarg, eastern Scotland, between Edinburgh and Perth, in 2006 with our family Carla Piliwale, Edd Hart, Barbara Joy Langer, Barry Melton, Jerry Donohue… that was a good time.

All my life I have read the books I wanted to read, with very little direction and purpose. It has worked for me, but I don’t know that I would recommend it to anyone else.

You will never meet a rich person who tries to convince you that having a lot of money will make your life easier.

People in general are kind but not really just.

Everyday meet someone new, a new idea, a new beginning, a new direction.

Self confidence and ability usually go together.

To spend life with a beautiful, happy woman, is anything better?

Women naturally have so much power that for a long time every law and custom sought to subjugate them. In fact, this is still the case, but it’s never going to work, I’ll tell you that right now.

Have you ever walked into a magnificent library and thought, “Oh, my god, I will never read a fraction of these books.” It’s rather like standing on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Sarah with her daughter Adyson in the wilds of Florida.

If a great tragedy happens to you, it might be worth considering how much a greater tragedy you have escaped.

Let each be happy in her own way, for what better way is there?

When you choose to be a musician, an actor, a poet, you are going against the odds. As Ruth Gordon said, Success is a refusal to face facts.

Somehow we were given life. Now it is up to us to live life well.

We all have to die. Is that a tragedy? Is it a comedy? It’s OK with me. Living forever could be, well, a little repetitious, even for the most creative mind.

I always have that secret hope that somehow I am not completely ridiculous in the eyes of women.

Don’t stand back and think how scary it is. Grab the bull by the horns, not the tail.

How you treat those who are “less” than you… animals, children, the homeless, is the measure of your character.

Nothing is so good to see as the happiness of one’s wife.

When you lie in bed at night and you think of all those things from so long ago, things that you wish you could call back and improve, the chance is now. Be a better person now and pay it back. Pay it back ever so slowly. If you live long enough, maybe you can pay it back enough and forgive yourself.

Life is a big Otis Elevator. Some are going up, some are going down, some just get on to take a ride and have a look around.

If you really love what someone else has done, say so, and then you join in the beauty of it.

Music is the art of mixing pleasure with truth.

Pass quickly through your sadness. Don’t give it any power.

Don’t think too much about a new project. Begin it. Do it.

Men are loud and full of bluster. Women take care of life and give it luster.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

Women always know where things are… unless we’re talking about car keys.

Being poor is no disgrace, but it is a very inconvenient place.

A good marriage is as much about friendship as it is about love.

If you really want to remember something, try to forget it.

If you believe that people are generally kind and honest, then you are probably kind and honest.

Life is short. Read the best books you can find. Leave the trashy ones far behind.

Doing what you love is labor without weariness.

You can never be great by imitating. The best you can do is get very close to your model but you will never be better than your model by imitating.

Perhaps better to imitate many models and pull together a style of your own.

I hate zoos for the same reason that I hate jails.

If you lie to someone, you hurt yourself more than you do the person who hears the lie.

If you really want to remember something, pay attention to it, think about it, note all of its peculiarities. Sing it.

Another good measure of a person is what she would do if she knew she were never going to get caught.

Do your utmost to find your way into a world of beauty.

If you go into politics you must learn the art of entering a room and knowing who is for you and who is against you. Great way to live, right?

I watch Fox News the way I would watch The Three Stooges or some buffoon program like The Gong Show. How ridiculous are they going to be this time? In twenty years, mark my words, if they run this stuff on TV it is going to look far more ridiculous than the most corny aspects of, say, I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners. But just as entertaining.

Immortality… it just seems to go on forever.

There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.

I don’t like to go to the movies to see violence or some kind of spy thing with all kinds of information you have to assimilate to understand the plot. First of all, it’s almost always the kind of information you want nothing to do with in your real life. Shady, murky, power without purpose, might without meaning, machinelike and without soul.

I want a film that is going to entertain me, yes, but I also want that film to make me a better person.

The future comes quickly, and, before you know it, it’s the past.

Are you reading this in the bedroom?

Passionate love? When you figure out how to make that last, let me know. Otherwise, it’s a spiritual love, work, companionship, respect for the other, kindness.

We’re all going to die, so how do you want to live?

I’m not asking what the future has in store, I just take each day as a gift and enjoy it.

Praise is like chewing gum. Enjoy it but don’t swallow it.

Stay on an even keel, be sharp, be wise, be real.

Nothing lasts… not even unhappiness.

Write something and then try to take as many words out of it as you can and still retain the meaning.

You learn most about yourself in hard times.

When it’s an uphill climb, stay calm, stay level in your mind.

Good health, a good conscience and a comfortable house, every now and then a delicious mouse.

A garden and friends and books… I have everything I need.

Experience is as a good a name as any for our mistakes.

Even while striving, stay calm and keep driving.

Don’t say good things about someone unless you mean them, and, if you mean them, say them all the time and loudly.

I’m so smart that I often don’t understand a word I’m saying.

People are wrong when they say pop music is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what’s wrong with it.

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

Power without probity is pernicious.

Strength without scruple is sick.

Success is being able to do for a living that which makes you happy.

I never thought I would spend my life doing something fun. Of course I never thought at all.

Inside I am still a geek, and maybe outside too.

You can do something great not by force, or even by talent, but simply by keeping at it.

It’s hard to fake creativity and humor.

All of us should be very thankful that life is unfair.

I like it when my avocations become my vocations.

I’ll go through life either in first class or in third, but never in second.

I read my favorite books over and over. I have probably read Boswell’s Life of Johnson ten times. And it’s not a little book in any sense.

There is a lot of craft behind comedy, but if comedy is done right, you never see the craft.

You can ask me almost anything and I will answer you as best I can.

I bet people never asked Edgar Varèse, “Hey, do you ever think of doing funny music?”

I try to do what is real, not ideal.

I travel so much that I love to be at home.

There are always two or three or four sides to every story.

What’s interesting about the process of playing music is how often you have no idea what you’re doing.

There’s a hidden link between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

The old days were the old days and they were great days, but now is now.

If you practice a bit, you can be whatever kind of person you choose, so choose well.

Wit or pleasantry or humor is always to be encouraged… even puns.

People always think that performers are extraverts which is almost never the case in my experience.

Never go anywhere where you have to wear brown shoes.

I couldn’t wait for success, so I’ve gone ahead without it.

Finding fame later in life is much healthier.

If you ever see me in a social setting wearing any kind of sportswear, you’ll know I’m in trouble.

I’m not a royal family watcher… not really a watcher of any kind of celebrity, come to think of it.

It makes me happy when musicians get rich, because the odds against it are so great.

It’s a good thing I brought my library card, because I am checking you out.

I find it hard to relax around any man who’s got the second button on his shirt undone.

What do Alexander the Great and Sam the Ham have in common? Their middle names.

I rarely leave my house.

I don’t want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.

I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.

I’ve always been in the right place at the right time. I put myself there.

When she started to play, Steinway came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano.

I’m Jewish, but I’m totally not.

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.

Of course there is other intelligent life in the universe, probably on hundreds, if not millions of planets. They are all so far away, however, that we may never find them. Space is immense. That’s a good name for it. Space.