“All the jazz guys had interracial relationships, and even the ladies did. Over the years, interracial relationships have been a hip, almost defiant thing, a way of saying “Nobody can put a boundary around me.””

Excellence isn’t an act, it’s a habit.

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.

Editing while you’re writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that’s the bottom line.

When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out.

I don’t deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn’t deserve that, either. So I’ll keep it.

You cannot get an A if you’re afraid of getting an F.

My son is a hip-hop producer.

It’s amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don’t have anything else to do.

I was the most subtle person in the world.

The relationship with a producer and an artist is really special. It’s got to be love and respect, amazing mutual respect for each other, because that’s what makes a good record.

I’m a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.

Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.

I chose the trombone because the trombone players in the marching band got to be up front with the majorettes (because of the slides) and I loved that!

Billy Strayhorn wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy to me is the boss of the arrangers.

I’m very realistic. I know my boundaries – I know what I’m good at and what I’m not good at.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

You cannot have a boundary-less existence, because your neighbor has his own boundaries, and who is going to give you the ethics between the two boundaries? If there is no objective moral law, relativism will take hold, and relativism ultimately will lead to self-destruction.

The only way you can know where the line is, is if you cross it.

Everyone has ocean’s to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.

I teach in the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Business School. And it’s the best perch… because most of my work crosses boundaries.

Children need boundaries, so they can know how far they have to go to get beyond them.