Lizz Wright

“Where I fit genre-wise, it's hard to tell. It's a fickle wind. But I have to believe there's always going to be a place for the songs inside of me.”

“I see 'Grace' as an affectionate refusal of things that just aren't true. With all our power and money and influence, we still can't raise up high over people's consciousness.”

“I've always loved the woods, and I've always loved gardening and a lot of solitude and quiet.”

“What I learned about singing in the church has gone into what I do now.”

“There's a beautiful, kind of seductive trap in being autobiographical in our writing of songs: We just get stuck in our own syrup, and it's so personal that it almost can be embarrassing to the listener.”

“I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.”

“I love singing all types of genres.”

“I come from a family that has grown their own food from well into times of slavery, provided for themselves and people around them. So I found, through conversations about the earth and about the house with my neighbors, a lot of common ground.”

“'Salt' is like this snapshot in midair, an action shot. It's about my relationship with the church, the classical and choral music that I dealt with in school, and my new introduction to jazz. It's very hard for me to listen to from beginning to end, because I hear how lost I was.”

“I want to record, tour, and just live life.”

“Everyone I perform and tour with looks out for each other; we ensure we stay healthy.”

“Surrender is working with what happens.”

“The truth is, when you want a great show, it's not 'entertaining' the audience - it's you sharing with them... an experience of communion.”

“I've begun to realize, as I'm getting older, that I was taught to go for a certain kind of stillness to get things done. I missed that in my life. I loved my grandmother's property, out in South Georgia right above the Florida line, so I just thought I'd find some property where I could feel that again.”

“The women and the men are teachers and preachers in my family, and a little bit of both those fell on me.”

“I think of myself as an interpretative singer and a songwriter.”

“Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience.”

“My mom has a couple great tricks, but my father is consistently a good cook. He's extremely avid about health and fitness and a bit obsessive. He always talks about garden-fresh food.”

“The church is an institution of music and of production and performance, and it has to do with taking people to places inside of themselves and giving them an opportunity to sit deep in their own feelings, and to be together and deeply alone at the same time, and to process things.”

“I'm in love with the way that Ella Fitzgerald delivered a lyric. She would deliver a lyric with the kind of clarity that would make you wonder why it was written, and make you think about the writer. I think every writer hopes an Ella of any genre or anytime gets a hold of their work and works the song like that.”