“You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.”

Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

My grandmother had this high-tech security system – a rusty nail she used to lock the door.

The only music I don’t like is bad music.

I’m just a musician and a record producer.

A lot of the guys were like that – Oscar Pettiford – they just took me under their wing, and that’s why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.

Let’s not get too full of ourselves. Let’s leave space for God to come into the room.

The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.

Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. ‘Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.’

I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs.

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

Making a record is like painting a school bus with a toothbrush.

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You’re dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That’s the soul of a country.

I’ve met every freak in the business.

Every day you must be able to say, I have to get up because I’m needed by someone. As long as you have that, you’re healthy.

God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.

Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.

I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.

The delays, the detours, the disappointments didn’t stop God’s plan.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them.

God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps us to tap and develop these powers.