What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years.

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

I think music should be judged on what it is. It should be very high and above everything else. It is a beautiful way of bringing people together, a little bit of an oasis in this messed-up world.

Jazz never ends... it just continues.

I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

I miss playing with Miles. I did play with him a little while before he left the planet, but even at that time I longed to maybe do some things together.

It's all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress...so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

Time is self absorbed, takes what it wants and doesn't return the favor. It is greedy, its pockets full of the lives of those left behind. It is a magician and a thief.

The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it!

My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored.

Why should we, however, in economics, have to plead ignorance of the sort of facts on which, in the case of a physical theory, a scientist would certainly be expected to give precise information?

Ingratitude' is the name which avatars of Narcissus give to the success of others.

One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.

I like to wear what I feel good in, not what the latest trend is.

The ability to sell is the number one skill in business. If you cannot sell, don't bother thinking about becoming a business owner.

There's one argument that says we shouldn't be putting these kids on under the age of 16. I think you've got to take it case by case.

At home, off-duty, I wear T-shirts from Fruit of the Loom - but I have them tailored.