It took me a long time to reach the decision to retire, actually, from the Art Ensemble.

Well, dojo is a traditional Japanese word for training hall.

So okay, I accepted, and I realized while working for that concert that I'd been missing something very important and vital to me, and that something was music.

You know, face painting in non-Western cultures is a sign of collectivism, is a sign of one representing the community, it's not unique at all.

We were doing performance art as far back as 1965, just not calling it that.

I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit.

Well, actually, I don't consider myself a jazz legend or anything.

In 1993, I retired from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to devote myself full time to Buddhist studies and to the practice of Aikido.

The Vision Festival was packed every night, always has been for the four years it's been happening.

People doing the kind of sound research that I'm interested in still have a difficult time.

In fact, since no one's been interested in my work, I took the responsibility recently to invest in my own work, so I'm producing a concert that was done at the Vision Festival in May.

Fear is the chain still wrapped around a free man’s leg

Sometimes I felt as if we were all wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far we were waving or drowning.

The Spirit filters through what I want and shows me who I am.

Religion can be one of the greatest impediments to finding God.

If the white man wants to hold on to it, let him do so; but the Negro, so far as he is able, should develop and carry out a program of his own.

Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.

When you live your life in alignment with a purpose that is centered on selflessly adding value for others, opportunities become abundant and your life becomes fulfilled.

During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

It's absolutely fine when Wile E. Coyote walks in with a band-aid on his head, after a 3,000-pound rock is dropped on him. That is what Ed Wood meant by the suspension of disbelief.

The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.