Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do.

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

The loudest noise in the world is silence.

There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances.

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

Haven’t I proved to you yet that I don’t give a damn about your missing parts?

There is no force in the universe that can harm you, unless you allow it to.

Finally, the intercom crackles and Hatmitch's acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, 'And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.

I was already well schooled in looking away, the jungle-craft of gentility.

It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

I would think you an utter fool if you did not doubt me, warrior. Instead, I am forced to respect your uncommon intelligence. Now what, do you suppose, should I do from there?

We all have things that will knock us down, but there's always something that will pick you back up. It's about those moments that make everything worthwhile.

It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well nor enough sense to hold their tongues; this is the root of all impertinence.

The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s. Why not tax people for owning a washing machine to fund the manufacture of Persil?

Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he. We are two lions litter’d in one day, and I the elder and more terrible.