I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something tremendously special. But I am a jazz fan.

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.

Amsterdam must have more than a million people. But the only area where jazz is really profitable and successful in an economic sense is in Japan. That's because they haven't been exposed enough.

Sponsors and networks will really go all out and simply evaluate people on the basis of talent.

Jazz is America's own. It is played and listened to by all peoples - in harmony together. Pigmentation differences have no place... as in genuine democracy, only performance counts.

If you don't get substantially what you want, be ready to walk. And don't look back.

There are very few groups that really stay together. The leaders of groups make enough money to be able to afford to work a maximum of 35-40 weeks a year.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn't take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren't interested in it.

Keep guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlets, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness.

All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone.

You are not what you think you are, but WHAT YOU THINK, the thoughts that habitually possess your mind, that is what you are

I think just vocally I have a little timber in my voice that God gave me that does work - it puts my own DNA onto it.

I think that you love who you love, and there are people who you love that people aren't going to understand why, and that sort of doesn't really matter.

Your life and your practice should not be separate. You bring your practice into experience. You bring it about.

When you hire somebody, you shouldn't have to tell them [a lot of what] to do; you hire them because you like their work and all you've got to do is tweak them a little bit.

The good news about psychedelics is that they are incredibly democratic. Even the clueless can be swept along if the dose is sufficient.

Out of Eternity the new day is born; Into Eternity at night will return.

I admire King Hussein his courage in leading his country for a long time.