It's very demanding to make up your own music.

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

I love Indian music very much, but I haven't studied that specifically.

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

A first love always occupies a special place.

I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.

We build confidence by daring to step outside our comfort zone in small increments.

If time were perfectly symmetric, gravity wouldn't exist.

The authentic answer is always the question’s vitality. It can close in around the question, but it does so in order to preserve the question by keeping it open.

There is no joy so great as that of reporting that a good play has come to town.

If all I cared about was me, I could make a million. And that's what they will never understand.

This is the river of the great 19th-century landscapists; of Cole, Cropsey and Church, and at the end of the summer it lies motionless under the haze as under a light coat of varnish.

Uncle Sam is forcing integration only because he's trying to impress the people of - abroad that he's morally qualified to be the leader of the world.

Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed so is the body.

I love all animals. I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales - sentient life - insects, reptiles.

The wonderful thing about age is that your knees don't work as well, you can't run down steps quite as easily and obviously you can't lift heavy weights. But your mind doesn't feel any different.