"Cannonball Adderley said, 'First 20 minutes we'll jazz out, then the last hour it's gonna be songs that people paid to see.' Which is why he was driving a Rolls-Royce."

Jazz is like a big secret club. The mainstream media doesn't pay any attention to it, it's like 1 percent of the music market - no one cares. Why? Because the majority of jazz is old.

Jazz is a state of mind. There's no boundaries.

When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

I think there's good music out there. I just think that radio stations don't play it.

There is a modern take on certain things you can do that, to me, is still jazz.

I grew up in church. That's how most young African American musicians learn how to perform. You could be six years old and playing organ or drums in front of thousands or hundreds of people.

A lot of times, jazz musicians try to educate people. What other genre does that?

I'm not really married to the craft of jazz - I'm married to me, and my style, and whatever I produce.

If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.

It's the repetitive thing that brings space. That's one of the things I love secretly about hip-hop. Jazz doesn't have that element. It changes every bar, nothing is ever the same.

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Christ the man died long ago, but Christ the idea of love, still exists, not in any church, rather in the mind of humans.

I tried to close my ears to the strange worshipful chanting and fix my mind on God, but the Egyptians’ idolatry weighed down my weary shoulders and brought tears to my closed eyes.

Mr. Rip Wan winkle, be a star that twinkle.

Forgiveness is about empowering yourself, rather than empowering your past.

You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident.

A good writer sells out everybody he knows, sooner or later.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves.

Throw in the intensity of emotions that come with that bittersweet summer sandwiched between high school graduation and the rest of your life.

I have thought that men and women should never come together except in bed. There is the only place where their natural hatred of each other is not so apparent.