I do very few standards. Hardly any. Other people's tunes that I do are usually obscure tunes, for the most part, although I do a couple of Duke Ellington tunes that are well known.

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

Everybody cryin' mercy / When they don't know the meaning of the word.

The things that really matter don't mix with idle chatter.

Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.

I been getting good crowds. It only took 50 years.

I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

I never sit down and write. I just sorta let things form in my brain.

We can't be afraid to be weird.

I think a lot of people are so scared of failure that they don't put everything they have into whatever they want to do. I think, in turn, they write their own destiny.

The extinction rate is so huge now, we're to the stage where we've got to set up recombinant ecologies. There are no longer enough species left, anywhere, to hold the system together.

I have tremendous faith that there will be greater films to come.

Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.

Happiness for a reason is just another form of misery because the reason can be taken away from us at any time.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter what the circumstances.

Over the next four years, we will be bold. We will be willing to experiment. We will not fear failure.

The best way to make a steak is grilled over an open flame or pan sauteed in a cast iron skillet.