“I’ve been back in New York a year and a half now. Before that I was on the West Coast for five years.”

I used to live at the Cecil Hotel, which was next door to Minton’s [Playhouse]. We used to jam just about every night when we were off. Lester [Young], Don Byas and myself – we would meet there all the time and like, exchange ideas. It wasn’t a battle, or anything.

If you try all different styles that are in vogue, I think you con yourself. Me, I just stick by my guns; I don’t want to play out of another man’s bag.

I like to play things that people understand, or maybe tunes that they could recognize. And so — I play for the people, just as much as for myself. Because, as I say, I still like to play.

I dont listen to my own records a lot. Once in a while – to check out my mistakes. Because you can always see a spot or two in the record where you could have done better. So you more or less study this way.

I don’t want to play out of another man’s bag.

There’s no comparison between the two. You hear things in New York you don’t hear anywhere else. Unless these guys go out. Quite a few make it out to the Coast. Of course, you can’t stay in New York for ever. You have to move.

Like every other place, I guess, Kansas City was quite a different city when I was a youngster there. They had quite a few clubs, and we had what we used to call jam sessions every night.

Inherent in the impulse to be free, is insecurity. The impulse to be free comes from outside of the mind, and because of this, it makes the mind feel very insecure.

If you can reincarnate, what do you wanna be in your next life? I think I want to become a rock.

Look at life all around; everything is growing, everything is moving forward. Therefore I recommend keeping in touch with life and with art.

Powers that be can’t stay in control if you have everybody in love and in tune with each other and with the planet, and in tune with the electrons and the dark matter that’s moving at the speed of light.

Everyone has a different route to success, recognition, and peace. Don’t be afraid to move instinctually.

Everyone moves for reason. You need a reason to leave everything behind.

I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralyzed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something – a great deal – to do with how we live our lives.

It is the thirtieth of May, the thirtieth of November, a beginning or an end, we are moving into the solstice and there is so much here I still do not understand.