I didn't even start playing the piano until I was about 13 or 14. I guess I must have had a little talent or whatever-you-call-it, but I practised regularly, and that's what counts.

Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.

Originality is the only thing that counts. But the originator uses material and ideas that occur round him and pass through him. And out of his experience comes the original creation.

Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend.

I like to think of music as an emotional science.

Look at the piano. You'll notice that there are white notes and black notes. Figure out the difference between them and you'll be able to make whatever kind of music you want.

Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.

Music sets up certain vibration which unquestionably results in a physical reaction. Eventually the proper vibration for every person will be found and utilized.

Why should I limit myself to only one woman when I can have as many women as I want?

It is always possible to create something original.

We are the instruments of genius, yet more the rhythm and less the drum as each expanding beat arises.

The average person is still under the aberrant delusion that food should be somebody else's responsibility until I'm ready to eat it.

He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.

You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.

Nothing is a matter of life and death except life and death.

What if I couldn't read? I wouldn't be able to text my friends movie times or even order cheese biscuits from Red Lobster!

If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false.

I think matching up Vietnam vets with these Iraqi vets would be a really great thing. When soldiers say only other soldiers can understand, that's what they're talking about: what it means to kill.

It certainly is a very difficult group,. We're still bleeding after the Champions League final and want our revenge.

America seemed a virgin land waiting for civilization. But Europe had made the wilderness it found; America was not a virgin, she was a widow.