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

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

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.

You know, when I'm playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I'm davening, I'm really telling it to the Wall.

Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.

Knowledge can never imprison you, but you can be captive to your ignorance.

You got one life, one chance, don't screw up. Put your fears behind your determination. Take the first step. Go for it my friend.

Every day, in some way, we're all being prepared for something better.

When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum.

Many parts of my life are perfectly ordinary, if that's what you mean. One could even call it boring, but that's what I like about it.

When I left Maine, I always wanted to be a working actor. I never cared too much about being the star. I just wanted to do the work and get on with it.

So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. But it's hard, because everybody has style. You can't help it.

My goal is always the same: to keep the other player from ever scoring a point. That doesn't always happen, but that's what I try for.

If one looks at the map of the world, it's difficult to find Iraq, and one would think it rather easy to subdue such a small country.