“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”

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!

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

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

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

Know your capacities and continually improve upon them.

It’s precisely the people who are considered the least ‘likely’ leaders who end up inspiring others the most.

This one question-‘What do I know for certain?’-is tremendously powerful. When you look deeply into this question, it actually destroys your world. It destroys your whole sense of self, and it’s meant to.

It is so inspiring when you come across a woman who is very strong and dedicated and is amazing at what they do. That’s how I feel about Meryl Streep.

I’d done a few short films before and thought acting was really creative, but when I worked with those guys, I was just like: “Wow!” They had such fun and freedom. They were trying things and stretching themselves. It was so inspiring that I was like: “I definitely want to do this!”

It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.

We are living in an inspiring and unimaginably large universe.

The worker can unionize, go out on strike; mothers are divided from each other in homes, tied to their children by compassionate bonds; our wildcat strikes have most often taken the form of physical or mental breakdown.