I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. 'Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

When I have them working together, it's like a beautiful kaleidoscope.

For me, being an innovator doesn't mean being more intelligent, more rich, it's not a word, it's an action.

The idea is more important than the style you're playing in.

You don't have to worry about being a number one, number two, or number three. Numbers don't have anything to do with placement. Numbers only have something to do with repetition.

I don't try to please when I play. I try to cure.

Music has many uses and I think the most perfected use that music has is one of a healing quality.

Whatever you do, it's over when you do it - but first you have to do it.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we've forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We've separated music from life.

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.

Genocide is the responsibility of the entire world.

Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.

Institutions do live on their history.

This is good, life must continue, we are fighting barbarians, but we must remain human.

Someone like myself is not from one place. I am in total identification with the New York, French, and Palestine experience and do not stop at the borders of identity.

A goal is a planned event

The world is out of shapewhen there are hungry men.

I think anybody goes through a crisis of confidence from time to time. You have to kind of doubt yourself, sometimes. It's the way forward.

The whole fashion thing is so oversaturated.