[I wanted] to play the clarinet well so I could be in Duke Ellington's band, but that's now impossible.

I always wanted to be a lawyer,but I certainly never wanted to be a trapeze performer.

There is a seamless web to life.. all life is sacred.

I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had

A lot of people in the adult population have a very limited idea as to why they are Americans, why we have a First Amendment or a Bill of Rights.

Do not categorize about music. You take each musician at the time and open yourself to that musician.

I was introduced to jazz, and that's become a basic concern and passion of mine ever since.

My parents were Orthodox Jews but not very regular Orthodox Jews. I was bar mitzvahed and all that. But God was hardly ever mentioned in my family. Franklin D. Roosevelt was.

The media ignores what is really going on.

I would bet there is no place in the United States where the First Amendment would survive intact.

What we have now in America is a surveillance society.

Reality depends a great deal upon one believing what he sees—or seeing what he believes. Either way.

Blessed is the heart that does not collect resentments and often dwells on them.

The last time you were happy about nothing

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.

If God only used perfect people, nothing would get done. God will use anybody if you're available.

I would wanna be a mermaid, but I think I'm a little bit more of a unicorn, because I'm like a little bit more horsey.

There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!

How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.

To be one of the special ones, you've got to want to take that shot-you've also got to be willing to fail, learn from it, come back and take that shot again.

I stay away from Speedos. That would cause me absolutely unnecessary publicity.