“There is never any end, There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state.”

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.

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.

As a camel kneels before his master to have him remove his burden at the end of the day, so kneel each night and let the Master take your burden.

The picture’s over. Now I have to go and put it on film.

When people come up and give me a compliment. I take each remark as if it were a flower. At the end of the day I lift up the bouquet of flowers I have gathered throughout the day and say, ‘Here you are, Lord, it is all Yours.’

There are two critical points in every aerial flight-its beginning and its end.

Some of these kids are spending more time with the coaches than they are with their parents. The coach is supposed to be raising these kids, not belittling them and talking to them like the world is coming to an end.

Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph.

Take me down to the river bend, take me down to the fighting end. Wash the poison from off my skin, and show me how to be whole again.

We all make decisions. But in the end, our decisions make us.