“I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.”

A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.

You can’t eat a winner’s plaque.

Bebop didn’t have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn’t even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging – but they weren’t sweet.

If you understood everything I say, you’d be me!

What’s swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don’t have to ask anybody if that’s good music or not. You can always feel it.

I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.

With “We Are The World,” I can’t even eat when I watch that on television. If I’m eatin’ some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.

Music is the framework around the silence.

I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

I think the greatest sound in the world is the human voice.

Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.

To keep creating you have to be about change.

If you don’t know what to play, play nothing.

When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.

If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they’re still here and passing it on to others.

Of course, you have to have a good reputation, especially as an artist, as a musician, so that other musicians would like to play with you.

You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.

I ain’t no entertainer, and ain’t trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician.

Artt Frank is my all-time favorite drummer. He always seems to know where I’m going.