After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

I love Indian music very much, but I haven't studied that specifically.

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

A first love always occupies a special place.

I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.

I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.

I inherited this longing. I was addicted to it. And so I was at home with those who wanted and never had enough. I was at home in the places that could never be. The places found only in dreams.

The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked with dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Life’s most precious moments are not all loud or uproarious. Silence and stillness has its own virtues.

Rudy, please, wake up, God**** it, I love you. Come on, Rudy, come on, Jesse Owens, don't you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up...

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.

NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.

It was my life, playing Juliet. From that moment on I was convinced I was going to be an actress. That was all I really wanted to do.

You are too free and untamable to be labeled.