I keep reverting (to Duke Ellington), he to me is the greatest ever and my favorite jazz philosopher, as such.

Hipness is not a state of mind, It's a fact of life!

You don't decide you're hip. It just happens that way.

There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.

He got a lovely pair of trainers given off his mum for Christmas, best pair he ever had, but it was the nylon laces that he couldn’t take his eyes off. They found him hanging in his cell!

Reading maketh a full man.

I only look forward. I can't get all caught up in what I've done. I still have plenty to accomplish in the game. Hopefully, I'm just scratching the surface.

Connecting dots is not that rewarding of an experience.

In the universe, there is darkness and light. We call this duality. When you seek knowledge and power, there are forces and people that will oppose you.

Being "in love" shouldn't cause stress; it should relieve it.

I never thought that I would write orchestra music, but in fact I did write a group of orchestra pieces.

Initiative can neither be created nor delegated. It can only spring from the self-determining individual, who decides that the wisdom of others is not always better than his own.

One thing I'm interested in is what shapes us: the people? The place where we live? It's both of those and more. That's what I keep coming back to.

Accordingly, one race is neither superior nor inferior to another.