"My mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist, you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person."

"Well, my dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years."

"It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs."

"I'm sure that there are reasonable people that had some reasonable projections about the future of New Orleans, but none of those could include not trying to rebuild the city and make it better than it was before."

"I don't like comedy. I like funny things. I don't like comedy. Like, comedy movies are just, 'Oh Jesus.'"

"People of humor are always in some degree people of genius."

"I am odd-looking. I sometimes think I look like a funny Muppet."

"The comedians I liked were Bill Cosby and Steven Wright, like just always as a comedic actor. I always liked Gary Larson, who's really funny for a cartoonist, obviously."