I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

When you're dealing with music without words, titles are more a means of identification than anything else. What's the point of getting lofty?

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

You don't know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.

I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

A lot of musicians have a tough time hearing what we're doing in a trio format.

I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.

So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.

This is the time to love. This is the time to forgive. This is the time to ponder. This is the time to wonder.

There's no point in arguing with an idiot - save for exposing their stupidity in their own words.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

We swear by the Quran and Sunnah, and we will not compromise with any infidel... Islam is the truth and all else is falsehood.

I don't linger on the fact that Dawn Fraser was a great swimmer 40 years ago. That was in the past. I did break 41 world records, but I don't live on that today.

This path, this road that is one perfect straight line even if it goes around the world through heat and fog and rain and snow and it's my life I keep thinking. It's my life.

I like to point out that people very often confuse the idea that truth is subjective with the fact that truth is perishable.

It's different for every writer. It's not a career for anyone who needs security. It's a career for gamblers. It's a career of ups and downs.

I don’t think you can really define love

Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.