In a certain sense, aspects of my solo playing were developed in order to test the theory about how long particular elements could be, as parts of so-called free improvisations.

Improvisation is a compositional method.

I think the voice does that perfectly adequately without being imitated by other instruments.

My roots are in my record player.

You know, the whole philosophy of ad hoc combinations has its strengths and its weaknesses.

Those early steps are very important in understanding the evolution. But in themselves, maybe now you need the later records to understand the significance of the earlier records!

We all listened to a lot of recorded music, especially American jazz, modern jazz, and that's where our studies were and our inspiration came from.

To speak about notation as the only way that you can guarantee structure of course is already very suspect.

There are many of these apparent philosophical paradoxes or contradictions which don't concern me anymore.

I think the solo playing, the decision to start playing solo, came out of having discovered what lay behind the doors that that technique opened for me.

When you add a period of 25 years between the playing and the listening, then the whole question of meaning gets very complicated.

You can be inspired externally but when it comes down to achieving your lofty goals it's all personal determination which is internal derived from the eternal.

I'm so tired of people who can't be honest. "Beauty is on the inside" Really?? Then why do rich guys & successful guys always end up with beautiful women but they have lousy personalities?.

If all the world must see the world As the world the world hath seen Then it were better for the world That the world had never been.

If you really want to know how a person will operate, look at how they've lived their life.

Being a mother has made my life complete.

Never trust a sentimentalist. They are all alike, pretenders to virtue, at heart selfish frauds and sensualists.

A useless life is an early death. [Ger., Ein unnutz Leben ist ein fruher Tod.]

Just as Freud couldn’t always be blamed for the Freudians, Bresson didn’t always feel obliged to behave like a Bressonian.

I don't expect to be thin, but I'd like to feel a bit healthier.

The wind had seized the tree and ha, and ha, It held the shivering, the shaken limbs, Then bathed its body in the leaping lake.