“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.”

I think I know what it is but don’t ask me to play it.

All of the technique doesn’t matter only if the feeling is right.

Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.

There are so many things to be considered in making music. The whole question of life itself… I know that I want to produce beautiful music, music that does things to people that they need.

The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.

You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.

One positive thought produces millions of positive vibrations.

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.

If I get to know somebody, I’ll open up, but other than that I like to sit back and observe things.

I hate and I love. And if you ask me how, I do not know: I only feel it, and I am torn in two.

I hate and love. And why, perhaps you’ll ask. I don’t know: but I feel, and I’m tormented.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.

There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

I knew one thing. I did not want to be a mommy like mommy.

I think the greatest lesson I have just recently learned is how powerful the mind is, informing our decision making unknowingly.