“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.”

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

Don’t ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person.

I believe that men are here to grow themselves into the best good that they can be – at least, this is what I want to do.

God breathes through us so completely, So gently we hardly feel it, yet it is our everything.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being…When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.

I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

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.

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.

My TV ain’t HD, that’s too real

The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.

The realest people don’t have a lot of friends.

The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.

Everything is so dreamy when you are young. After you grow up it kind of becomes, just real.

The Internet is such, it’s so not real. But it’s big and it feels big when you’re on it.

You’re not the real you, you’re just you.

My first real crush was Louis Tomlinson.