I'm out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I'm still playing.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

In music, silence is more important than sound.

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.

In the beginning, there was movement.

Don't be sad because i'm dying, be happy because very second another great human being is born, another great person who gets the chance to do better things than i did.

One thing is certain and the rest is lies The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

I grew up in New York City, where we played highly unorganized sports: stick ball, stoop ball, and the occasional game of baseball with no adult supervision.

Your memories from your early childhood seem to have such purchase on your emotions. They are so concrete.

Losers make promises they often break. Winners make commitments they always keep.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

I did mostly alcohol. There were drugs, too - pills - and there was a danger that I would go over the edge. I could have. I thank God I didn't.

Nations keep agreements, keep their treaties so long as they continue to do them good.

I would prefer a thousand times to receive reproofs than to give them to others.