And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

Kinship doesn't come from skin color. It's in your soul and your mind.

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies

There are no places in this world where the chit can be concentrated. Without the chit attaining steady-state

Why was everyone so interested in her now? When it was too late to change anything? What was the point?

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

My wife and children seem to like me quite a bit, and as long as that is true, I'm really OK.

It is regarded as normal to consecrate virginity in general and to lust for its destruction in particular.

We pay for security with boredom, for adventure with bother.

Sometimes the most happy people in life are the ones with nothing. We can't lose sight of the little things in life that should make us the happiest.

Clergymen who publish pious frauds in the interest of the church are the orthodox liars of God.

He who has laughter on his side has no need of proof.