I always resented the role of a drummer as nothing more than a subservient figure.

The American drummer is a one-man percussion orchestra.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It's the rhythm section that has changed the styles from one period to the other.

Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.

You can't write the same book twice. Though I've been in historical musical situations, I can't go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

They had all this talent, and they had no instruments. So they started rap music. They rhymed on their own. They made their own sounds and their own movements.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

We rarely recognize the extent to which human happiness requires struggle.

The price of every thing rises and falls from time to time and place to place; and with every such change the purchasing power of money changes so far as that thing goes.

Fear of the future and longing for the past are major factors which impede appropriate action.

When you can give without expecting anything in return, you have mastered the art of living.

It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

That's what I love about running - I feel like we all celebrate each other. Even if you're racing somebody at the finish, it's like you're in it together.

One wonders what would happen in a society in which there were no rules to break. Doubtless everyone would quickly die of boredom.

It either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anyone can get any benefit from it.

If you do not see any good in these persons, then say nothing, but if you do see some, speak about it to honor God in them because all good proceeds from Him.