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

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.

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.

I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.

Enjoyed the ride?' Janis asked, sarcasm in her voice. 'I never thought you'd actually be scared of flying.''Well, it's not everyday I ride unicorns to parallel worlds, ' I muttered.

We all belong to the holiness of our eternal soul.

Where the myth fails, human love begins. Then we love a human being, not our dream, but a human being with flaws.

Love is a strange commodity, because you can't import it if you don't also export it.

I let my summer days pass idly on.

Faith works miracles. At least it allows time for them.

To the lack of incentive to effort, which is the awful shadow under which we live, may be traced the wreck and ruin of scores of colored youth.

People are writing shorter jokes. The style I've started with was almost trying to keep jokes under 140 characters before Twitter.

It's hard to know what to say about somebody like that, except there are people who look for trouble. And trouble is very easy to find when you go looking for it.

Mankind has always made too much of its saints and heroes, and how the latter handle the fuss might be called their final test.