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

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.

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.

Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with jazz was that there were too few groups.

Being sceptical about technology is like deciding whether or not you should breath.

It's not the fall but the impact...

A classic liberal is more like a libertarian. I'm sorry. Classic liberal, actually, from the 1800s has a totally different meaning than a liberal who is [modern] classic.

There is not a more pleasante exercise of the mind than gratitude.

Lucretius, who follows [Epicurus] in denouncing love, sees no harm in sexual intercourse provided it is divorced from passion.

The rednecks. Well, you're not going to get there with climate change and [Vladimir] Putin and all the rest of it.

I trust my arm as much as I trust my legs.

Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.

However much we do to avoid them, we shall never lack crosses in this life if we are in the ranks of the Crucified.

What is a logical mind?... It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason whereby true happiness is vivified.