I've always regretted the fact that I've never formally studied and learned the mechanics of writing music.

You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.

There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. they are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence.

The value of jazz still has to be clarified. People involve themselves with its superficialities without digging for its soul.

I cannot play a lie. I have to believe in what I play or it won't come out.

I practiced saxophone eight hours a day for the first two years I played.

They that be born in the strength of youth are of one fashion, and they that are born in the time of age, when the womb fail, are otherwise.

The world's people all share the earnest aspiration to have peace, stability, justice and cooperation.

I used to be homophobic, but as I got older, I realized that wasn't the way to do things. I don't discriminate against anybody for their sexual preference, for their skin color... that's immature.

The biggest battle in life is with yourself

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

Poetry is to be found nowhere unless we carry it within us.

The amount of things you can do with a kettlebell is unsurpassed by any other training equipment - dumbbells, resistance machines, free weights.

I'm incredibly grateful for the time I spent with STOMP and even more so for the skills and awareness I developed as a performer during that time.

[D]ivine Providence... keeps the universe open in every direction to the soul.