“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.”

You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.

One positive thought produces millions of positive vibrations.

I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. You know, I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.

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.

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.

There’s a great expression that says, “God is a jealous lover,” and it’s a very accurate expression that has nothing to do with whatever you see god or nature as.

I wrote about Freud and the process of sublimation, which is when you learn to stop breast-feeding, or stop going to the toilet whenever you want to. It’s about learning to repress a desire for instant gratification.

That’ll be the day when I die.

A physical expression of formae. Or at least have got close enough to explain all those legendary swordsmen and their inexplicable desire to roost on the tops of bamboo trees.

In the studio the director controls the actor’s every move, every inflection, every expression.

Cantona’s expression speaking the whole French dictionary without saying a word.

What frustrated me was the thought that with three thousand years of history someone in China, some monk in a monastery halfway up a mountain, must have developed a magic kata.

Jazz vision for me is seeing my art in musical term. It offers me an visual expressions in an ever-changing musical palette.