Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

In music, silence is more important than sound.

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.

You know what he taught me? He taught me to feel more. He taught me to give myself over to feelings. And now that's all I have. I'm swamped by them. I can't breathe because I feel so damn much.

Looking is the nature of wisdom.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

One of my earliest memories is of my father carrying me in one arm with a picket sign in the other.

Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth and the Great Silence alone.

If you want to stay fit, surround yourself with a couple of chicks who are fired up, so that the one day you're not, you can feed off their energy.

Enthusiasm, like the breath of God, transforms everything.

[Islam] is not measured by the color of his skin.

Wisdom is founded on memory; happiness on forgetfulness.

It's an absolute myth that early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Of course it doesn't.