Esperanza Spalding

“When I was a kid, I was really curious about acting. And I was interested in movement and dance. I wasn't good at either of those things - I didn't work at those things.”

“Your sanity is harder to get back than money or contacts. You are the magic. You are the art. You can't lose that.”

“The benefit of the radio is, something beyond your realm of knowledge can surprise you, can enter your realm of knowledge.”

“Genre boundaries are good for marketing but they all but disappear when you're a player.”

“I just think music is so intrinsically linked with images in the culture that we live in that you'll be hard-pressed to have an experience with the music without a preconceived notion.”

“As you go back or move toward insights/ideas/events/words/lessons/mistakes in the past, you develop into the future from the present. I think that's pretty cool that two quote-unquote opposites are intrinsically linked. That whole theme of opposites being two sides of the same whole is a theme that's always been intriguing to me.”

“I put my mother through a lot when I was a teenager. I used to lie a lot. Now, we talk all the time.”

“For what I can imagine and feel and think and hear, I can hardly do anything on the acoustic bass. It used to be just pure frustration of imagining so much more and being able to get to a certain level of execution.”

“I focused primarily on being an instrumentalist and studying music and on my primary means of expression: composing and playing.”

“I am insubordinate by nature. I can't help it.”

“It's about process, the process of growth. It seems to me in my own life - and other minds throughout history have also observed this phenomenon - that growth seems to move in two directions at the same time.”

“I just want to say, if you're going crazy, take a break. I felt overwhelmed by stuff that wasn't satisfying me, things I was supposed to do for my career. I stopped and said, 'Let me get back to the basics.'”

“It's a pity that if someone who has a really profoundly potent art to share chooses not to or doesn't fit into this very thin slice of what's desirable and marketable, chances are the public will never get a chance to hear what they're doing.”

“There is an assumption that if you're young and pretty, you will get all these opportunities that are way beyond your musical foundation.”

“If you don't already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.”

“I write at the piano, so I write things that fit comfortably under my hands, and I'm not thinking in terms of any specific compositional methods. I'm just seeking sounds.”

“When I was a kid, people called me Emily rather than Esperanza, even though my full name is Esperanza Emily Spalding.”

“I never think my music isn't easy until I got to teach it to other people.”

“Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.”

“I don't watch TV, I don't spend time on the Internet, and I don't party much. I don't text very much, either.”