Many people do think it's naive to improvise in front of paying customers. I'm not saying one way is better than another.

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

I love Indian music very much, but I haven't studied that specifically.

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

A first love always occupies a special place.

I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.

Do you want to know something about tyrants? When faced with death, they weep and they beg just like the rest of us.

If you're in business, all the content in the world will do you no good unless it leads to a sale.

Problems are meant to be solved, but unfortunately, a lot of people choose to complain, worry, and cry about them.

Somewhere within you is a huge supply of happiness, always there, patiently waiting for you to reach out and grab it. It’s yours for the asking. And you ask by giving it your attention.

We are shallow because we are 'mayabang, ' ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.

We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.

I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.

President Bush has been silent on Schwarzenegger. Of course, he can't pronounce Schwarzenegger.

Nonviolence is the rock on which the whole structure of non-co-operation is built.

I have brought you to the ring, now you must dance.