Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it.

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

The loudest noise in the world is silence.

There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do.

Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances.

Do you know what you get when you try to escape? When you drive for miles in a deserted city or swim for hours in a shoreless sea? You get yourself.

Then focus on thruth, not logic. Stop trying to figure out why and look for what is.

Swelling in anger or sparkling in glee.

I just live in the truth and think that every moment counts.

A civil ruler dabbling in religion is as reprehensible as a clergyman dabbling in politics. Both render themselves odious as well as ridiculous.

I think sometimes the very reason we go through something is so that we can be empathetic with another person later on.

If I want a small take-everywhere camera, I prefer my iPhone 5, which has colors and tonal range superior to any DSLR or compact digital camera I've ever used at their default settings.

[T]he historian lays humanity on the couch.

There are noble tones, ordinary ones, tranquil harmonies, consoling ones, others which excite by their vigour.