The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.

If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I was always willing to say, "Let's see what happens," when something came up that looked like it might help me get a little closer to where I wanted to be . . .

Keep on listening & tapping your feet.

I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

I ate and read my book, this particular kind of fantasy novel that I secretly loved. It was my favorite thing to do– eat and read. The world just shut up for a while.

A dead plant is nothing but a sign to plant a new one

If you're low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn't seem entirely fair.

Write about society as news and treat it like sociology.

In dance, even the weakest can do wonders.

Everybody wants to know about my style and how it came about. It's no big secret. It's the way I feel.

The success my children have had has helped me immensely. Ive showed them a certain respect for this career.

Am I not a woman and a sister?

The worst thing that can happen to us in an ideological struggle is to become what we are fighting.

Consciousness is observing your thoughts and actions so that you can live from true choice in the present moment rather than being run by programming from the past.