“Charlie Christians’ contributions to the electric guitar are as big as Thomas Edisons’ contributions to the world.”

When I joined the trio, it was as if I was capable of driving a sports car at 60, but Ray Brown and Oscar Peterson just kept pressing the pedal down, and I was trying to control the car at 80!

Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It’s not the thing in itself; it’s preparatory to the activity

I’m not interested in a marketable product: I’m interested in what I know from my life experience to be standards of excellence

he signed his work .. you could always tell when it was Herb Ellis playing

Charlie Christian showed me a lot, and was a great help, but even then, I realised that if I was going to make it, it was no use copying Charlie

Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, but it does provide deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair

God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.

…Singles, too, must see the penultimate status of marriage. If single Christians don’t develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their DREAM of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well.

Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process.

The office of president requires the constitution of an athlete, the patience of a mother, the endurance of an early Christian.

Selsdon Man is designing a system of society for the ruthlessness and the pushing, the uncaring. His message to the rest is: you’re out on your own.

The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.

At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Christmas story. A young mother and a dutiful father with their baby were joined by poor shepherds and visitors from afar. They came with their gifts to worship the Christ child.