“Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that’s too bad.”

My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there’s no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being.

Considering the great heritage in music that we have – the work of the giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come – I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically.

The real risk is not changing. I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.

Change is inevitable in music – things change.

Whatever I’d say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.

The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.

I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.

Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

I’d like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.

I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I’m doing, the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there’s some feeling of communication, it isn’t necessary that it be understood.

Invest yourself in everything you do. There’s fun in being serious.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.

I’m into scales right now.

I want to be the force which is truly for good.

Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

Once the Fugitive Slave Act took effect, the Northern states were no longer safe for those who managed to escape from being enslaved.

The second season of Underground does explore Canada’s role in providing a welcoming place for the thousands who were in danger of being captured and returned to their owners, and those who escaped by way of rerouting beyond the American borders.

All that has really happened is that Al Qaeda has escaped from Afghanistan come into Pakistan, got in touch with their contacts and friends.

When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what you are.

For me personally, I think I just enjoy movies about werewolves or vampires because it’s not like an everyday thing. It’s something you can really escape into.

If you escape from people too often,, you wind up escaping from yourself.

I don’t think [Dylan and the Beatles] influenced me a lot. I think it was inevitable; they were so powerful that you couldn’t really escape the influence.

I use music really as a form of raw expression; escape from the real world.