It's fun to peek into other people's worlds and see how they go about doing things.
Norah Jones
For me making music is part social, part interaction, part collaboration.
I would love to make a real jazz album someday because I never have. But that's something I'm not in a rush to do.
A lot of my music is slow and subtle. The subtly is what I enjoy about making music.
I should have a therapist. I have plenty to therapise about.
I wasn't a trained Mickey Mouse club performer. I played in jazz clubs and restaurants.
Everyone in my high school was a bit nerdy. We didn't even have a football team.
The pop world is cool, but I never really thought of myself as part of it or wanting to be a part of it because I'm on a label that's not really like that. They're not trying to dress me up, they're not trying to do things like that. I feel like I'm sort of separate from that, actually.
I don't want to be singing my diary.
Songs are about whatever you want them to be about. For me it might mean something completely different than what it means to you. So I'd say it's about whatever the listener thinks it's about.
I'm very American.
Nobody was listening when I learned how to play music. But there's something about being on stage, talking to the audience, looking at them and smiling, that's always been difficult for me. I'm a lot more comfortable now, but there are still moments of awkwardness.
What I was going for in the first two albums I didn't necessarily achieve. Because I was young and because it was my first time out. And the second album was such a 'quickie' sort of 'Let's just get it over with!' But the kind of music I make, there's a lot of subtlety in it. And I think it takes a couple of listens to actually really get it.
I don't try to sound like anyone but me anymore. If something is out of my element, I try to avoid it.
Coffee gives me bad breath.
The coolest thing I've gotten to do in the past few years is guest star on Sesame Street.
It's true, there's a lot of melancholy in my music. I don't know why, I'm not a melancholy person. I've always been drawn to it. Ever since I was a kid, if I had an album I would play the ballads on repeat.
I wasn't very aware of pop music because I attended an arts school. For me, it was all about jazz.
Maybe I'm genetically more inclined to music - but the music I make is so far removed from Indian classical music. I grew up in Texas!
If you're a female and you get asked by someone who shoots the most beautiful female scenes to be in their film, it's kind of exciting.
Designers send me clothes I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing.
Your limitations create your sound.
I genuinely don't feel that anything that's been written or said about me has overshadowed my music, and that's the most important thing as far as I'm concerned.
My first two records are so simply constructed. The reason isn't because I wanted to make simple music. It's because I don't really have the chops.
I don't think I'm a great songwriter, but I think I've learned a lot about it, and I don't think there's any one way to do it. I don't think I can control it at all. I can just kind of hope that it happens.
I had very modest expectations when I first moved to New York. I didn't even expect to get a record deal.
In college I had a weekend gig at a restaurant, a solo thing that was the best practice I could have ever had. That's where I learned to coordinate my singing and my piano playing.
I don't like shopping, and I like my clothes to be comfortable.
For me, there's a fine line between being a cheeseball and being a good performer.
I got stood up by the letter Y, he was hanging around with his X.
I don't want to be the next big anything. I just want to play for people and that's it.
Without a piano I don't know how to stand, don't know what to do with my hands.
I love slow music.
You would never catch me in a miniskirt.
God bless Ray Charles. It was such an honor to meet him and sing with him and actually just to watch him sing from just two feet away.
All is fair in love and songwriting.
I try to just make music that I love, and if I believe in it that's all that matters.
I make a good fried chicken.
I like my life. I like my friends. I don't want to go anywhere else.
I love film, and I would love to be a part of something that people universally love as a piece of film. Sure. Of course I would. And I would love to take acting lessons, and see that side of it someday. But I'm a musician.
During my first photo shoot, I was unhappy because they put so much makeup on me and straightened my hair. I've been stubborn ever since.
You know, when you have a father who's pretty well known but you don't see him, the last thing you want to do is start talking about him all the time to people.
I don't actually have a lot of discipline. I've worked hard at music. But I feel like you know, I felt like kind of natural at it. I always had a knack for it.
I'm a musician because I love it and it's supposed to be fun.
When something's ending, you go through so many phases, and it can be frustrating. But once you're out on the other side, it's like you can really see all the crazy phases you went through.
There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.
I'm not a very dark person.
I just want to keep making music, recording and trying different things. I don't want to do the same thing all the time.
A record is just a snapshot of where you are at any time.
There was an enormous amount of pressure when my first album took off, and I struggled with the speed of everything and the exhaustion from the constant touring.
