Quotes by Harry Connick, Jr.

I get terrible reviews everywhere I go.

Not everybody gets to record with an orchestra, and not everybody that gets to record with an orchestra gets to write all their own stuff.

Well, I'm an optimist.

You hear about these guys having midlife crises -- I don't see that happening to me.

I never dated much.

I love orchestrating music and conducting and being on Broadway.

In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded.

I had an old man moment the other day. I went into Abercrombie and Fitch to get some jeans and the music was so loud I couldn't stay.

I just liked the feeling of being on stage. My parents weren't pushing me, they didn't have to, I was obsessed.

I sing because I've forgotten how to scream.

Many people in and out of showbiz live their lives in different ways. I try to be the best I can be.

You basically have to play everything (in New Orleans), because you're getting calls to play gigs of all different styles, from classical to RandB to funk; modern jazz to traditional jazz.

If you think of the public lives of people who've been unlucky, it seems showbiz is some tumultuous crazy world but some are fortunate and some unfortunate. All I can do is keep striving to be better.

I wake up everyday and try to be the best husband, father and entertainer I can be. I'm no different offstage or talking to you or onstage than I am going to dinner with my family. It's all the same place and I apply the same values to all I do. It works for me.

I've raised my girls in a sort of genderless fashion. I mean, I'll take them to get their nails done -- I actually love doing that -- but I also play ball with them. As a result, my girls are tough and athletic and game for everything.

If I keep striving to put on the best quality show based on the values I have, I don't have to think oh we're crossing the line because the line is built in. We follow that and do the best quality work we can.

With a tone so rich, I would never be afraid of the dark. Steinway is the only and the best!

They don't make you what you are, you do. You are what you choose to be.

No matter what genre of music you play when you rack up a couple years of experience, you have your own point of view no matter who it is that is coming in front of you whether it's a pop artist or a country artist. Whoever.

I'm gay, it's all a big scam. My kids don't even know who their mother is.

The reasons I never set out to do a talk show is they're formulaic. People come out, tell jokes and read questions. But that's not what I do, and we built the show around my skill set.

You have to do things that do good for you and when there's an uncharted course, you have to figure out how to get through it.

My Dad is my hero.

Let's kick the tires and light the fires, big daddy.

Girls liking bad boys is the cookie jar complex. When somebody tells you you can't have a cookie, you want a cookie. But I live in a bad-boy world, artistically. All the jazz boys are bad boys.

New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate.

I had tons of friends, played ball with my friends on the street, and did the normal things.

I just liked the feeling of being on stage.

You can't have a perfect show every time.

I'm really boring, man. Like, I'm really dull. And I think people may think that I have this glamorous, fun lifestyle, but it's pretty dull. But that's what I like.

There are people who can't stand me, they say, 'God, he makes me sick', or, 'He's creepy', but it doesn't affect me too badly.

I'd like to move back to New Orleans.

There's some things I can't write about, just terrible personal tragedies.

Well, my mother, I knew until I was 13. She died when I was 13.

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

I guess play piano, you know, because that's the thing I started doing when I was a little kid.

I'm able to sometimes express things even more articulately on the piano than I am with singing.

I'm having a lot of fun, enjoying my life and trying to raise my children.

I have no doubt that the government of this great nation will work with its people to lead New Orleans and the Gulf Coast back to an enlightened, proud, safe part of the world.

I always laugh at these rock n'rollers where you can't understand them. Mind you, it's not because they're inaudible or indistinguishable; it's because they're too obscure.

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.

If you can say the lyrics almost like a poem and they stand up, that's a great thing. Some songs have great lyrics and I don't like the melodies, and vice versa.

There's an album by Antonio Carlos Jobim -- the album with 'The Girl From Ipanema.' That's the most seductive music ever.

Live theater is just an incredibly powerful medium, and I think anyone who goes, whether they know about it or not, if they see something that sort of fits with them, it's kind of hard to deny that they had a good time.

I like to jump some rope and swing kettle bells to get my blood pumping. It makes my voice sound better, and it clears my head.

Sometimes you try a song and people don't respond, or you tell a story and you just hear crickets. But when you play thousands of shows, you start to refine stuff.

All the satisfaction I need... comes when I step out onstage and see the people. That's awesome. I love that.

I don't really find girls to be any more dramatic or delicate than boys; I've known plenty of little boys who've had miserable breakdowns over things... in fact, I was one of them!

I only tour in short bursts, I'm only ever away from my family and three daughters for a month or two.

I have those dreams that you can't put into words.

I've spent hours playing video games.

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.

My dad and mom believed that you do what you have to do in private and don't make a big deal out of it. Just try to help people as much as you can.

I couldn't have been luckier with my parents.

I practice and work hard at my music, but I'm not saving lives here.

I have a big ego, and I'm a confident person, but when it comes down to being a jerk, that doesn't work for me, I tried it... for about ten years.

The whole 'American Idol' way of looking at things is the antithesis of what I grew up with. There are a whole lot of kids wanting to be famous now, whereas if I'd even mentioned that word to one of my teachers, I would have got into a whole load of trouble.

When I'm acting, I'm in a different place, singing is the last thing on my mind, and when I'm on stage, there's no acting at all involved, not even presentation, it's just who I am.

I'm not a movie star. People know me, but they don't necessarily know what they know me for. I get recognised, but it's not like Justin Bieber. It's a nice thing, people are cool.

When I did the album for 'When Harry Met Sally,' I found myself out there in front of this big band, which I had no idea how to do, and they wiped the floor with me. It's a very specific skill, and I didn't know how to do it.

I'm a huge Freddie Mercury fan. I think he was the end-all. I love his lack of inhibition, his talent, the chances he took. He made mistakes on his records, and he didn't care.

I'm not trying to be romantic. I think you can tell when people are trying to be sexy onstage. When I was doing 'All the Way,' I was really thinking about my wife. People don't know my personal experience, but they can tell it's an honest interpretation.

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 live in Connecticut, but eventually I'd like to move back to New Orleans. I grew up there; the pace is a bit slower. Plus, I love crawfish and po'boys.

You know what's funny? I don't ever feel the need to escape. I have a strong marriage. I like my life. You hear about these guys having midlife crises -- I don't see that happening to me.

You have to read scripts and audition and develop relationships. It takes a long time to develop a body of work but over the last 25 years I guess I've done that many movies. In hindsight it may seem effortless, but there's a lot of work that goes into it.

I say sorry to my wife about five times a day for various reasons.

I mean these people who work on Broadway, in my opinion, are the most gifted of everyone. I mean they really know how to dance. They really know how to act. They really know how to sing. They know how to perform.

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 and bring about my interpretation of them.

Everything I do is part of my passion.

I don't really get shaken very much. People could heckle me, a spotlight could go out, I could forget a lyric... I'm not operating on somebody's brain, you know what I mean? So I just think it's all funny.

A lot of the music that you listen to now is because of the things that the Meters did, the Neville Brothers did, and they're there, the guys who invented those beats that the guys sample today. Such an enormous opportunity.

Everything I do is part of my passion. I do the things I like to do. It's sort of a bigger version of having more than one hobby. I love to play piano, sing, and act. I love to do all those things.

If your record doesn't sell that well, man, who cares? All the satisfaction I need... comes when I step out onstage and see the people. That's awesome. I love that.

I've learned that people latch onto labels and stereotypes. There was a period when I was asked in every single interview how I liked being the new Frank Sinatra... I think people will soon realize that I do a lot more than interpret old songs.

The two are unrelated. I'm not into turtles or space stuff.

My life is spontaneous and things just kind of happen.

Before I had kids I'd go out on the road for months and months at a time, but now I don't think I'd want to do that anymore, because I'd miss too much time at home, so it's just a matter of monitoring how much work that I do and how much time I'm on the road.

Safety's just danger, out of place.

I used to go to Bourbon Street when I was a kid and there would be club after club after club of people who were around when the music started. I mean these are legendary, maybe not so well known, but legendary musicians.

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

You won't talk to anybody who breaks lyrics down more thoroughly. It's just a complete deconstruction, and when you start to rebuild, nobody has the capacity to do it like me. Which is not to say I'm better, it's just that there's a unique quality to everyone.

I was raised in the environment where it really wasn't about sittin' around dreaming all the time, it was about practicing and workin' really hard and if a dream ever came to you, you'd be prepared for that opportunity.

I love my wife and I know she loves me. We're best friends. We're just lucky to have found each other. It takes a lot of work but I just feel very blessed that I found the right person. It's a very fortunate situation and not everyone has that.

I don't ever feel the need to escape.

You know, I feel as comfortable in an uncomfortable situation as I do when things are going smoothly.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

My dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years. And when he opened his campaign headquarters back in the early '70s, when I was 5 years old, my mother wanted me to play the national anthem. And they got an upright piano on the back of a flatbed truck and I played it.

We would like to get to a point in our society where people really are colorblind and this message would not have to be told anymore. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.

We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes, 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans' musicians. It is called the Musicians' Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

I've been all over the world. I love New York, I love Paris, San Francisco, so many places. But there's no place like New Orleans. It's got the best food. It's got the best music. It's got the best people. It's got the most fun stuff to do.

You know, things kind of happen organically and, you know, Broadway sort of happened out of a career in performing and -- which happened out of practicing piano when I was a kid.

My Dad is my hero. He's 85 now and he is in great health. He is handsome and strong. He has an incredible moral and ethical backbone. I couldn't have been luckier with my parents.

I think a dad has to make his daughter feel that he's genuinely interested in what she's going through.

Marriage has made me a lot happier and I'm deeply in love with my wife, and I thank God for her every day.

It is really rare to find someone you really, really love and that you want to spend your life with and all that stuff that goes along with being married. I am one of those lucky people. And I think she feels that way too. So the romantic stuff is easy because you want them to be happy.