“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.’”

The process is the most beautiful part.

I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

It’s the attitude about life, man. Looking at the light instead of the dark. Looking at love instead of fear.

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.

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.

When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.

The end of great beginnings is to disregard the cognisance.

Healthy relationships should always begin at the spiritual and intellectual levels – the levels of purpose, motivation, interests, dreams,and personality.

I am afraid that if we begin to put our trust in human help, some of our Divine help will fail us.

I lift my hands in praise and all else begins to fade, for you are all that matters; lord take all of me.

Where we ended I began.

Yesterday ended last night. Every day is a new beginning. Learn the skill of forgetting. And move on.

Any society begins by realizing that together, by helping each other, you can survive better than if you fight each other and compete with each other.