“Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.”

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

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 like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.

You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.

Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.

A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

I’m sure critics have their purpose, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.

Every man prays in his own language.

Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.

Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.

Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

Of the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.

You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.