And then adds with a laugh, 'but in retrospect I think he may have been more sophisticated than we were.'

Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz.

Honesty is the cruelest game of all, because not only can you hurt someone - and hurt them to the bone - you can feel self-righteous about it at the same time.

If you look at music, you see theme, variation, you see symmetry, asymmetry, you see structure, and these are related to skills in the real world.

My uncle and my grandfather both worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

I think I have more in common with a carpenter than you might think. We're putting things together.

God has a way of telling you when to change your strings.

You can't be afraid of failure and you can't be afraid of success, because either one gets in the way of your work.

When you're working in front of an audience, you have incentive to excel.

I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician.

There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians.

Responding to truth will keep you safe. Reacting to error will only create another error.

Were it not for love, Poor life would be a ship not worth launching.

I don't like people to feel completely described by the clothes they wear of mine. I want them to feel that they're describing themselves.

If you have millions of dollars you are not going to get to continue doing what you want. You are into a world of commitment to that money and all the people that helped you get that money.

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

My gut tells me everything I need to know.

When many people individually get what they want, the result may be something they collectively dislike.

If a gem falls into mud it is still valuable. If dust ascends to heaven, it remains valueless.

Grace has uprooted us from a barren wilderness of sin and transplanted us by streams of living water.