I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

I think music should be judged on what it is. It should be very high and above everything else. It is a beautiful way of bringing people together, a little bit of an oasis in this messed-up world.

Jazz never ends... it just continues.

I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

I miss playing with Miles. I did play with him a little while before he left the planet, but even at that time I longed to maybe do some things together.

It's all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress...so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

Where there has been true science, art has always been its exponent.

Western environmentalists might value their independence, but their organizations are largely donor driven, and if he wanted to, Putin could have a lot to donate.

Every time a congressman or pundit says its 'class warfare' to increase taxes on the wealthy, it's a massive lie.

In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.

We put up with a lot to be saved from chaos. We always have.

Your eyes will always go to red, which is why there is a lady in red in all my shows.

Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.

People are always going to have opinions, and people have a right to their opinions.

I don't practise any religion but I am deeply interested in the answers that mankind has come up with to explain the human situation.

People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don't desire to exhaustive thinking