Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

Kinship doesn't come from skin color. It's in your soul and your mind.

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies

Every individual should be expressing themselves, whether a politician or a minister or a policeman.

If you learn to look at the worldly madness through spiritual eyes, you will begin to see divine balance and sanity.

I forgive, but I also learn a lesson. I won’t hate you, but I’ll never get close enough for you to hurt me again. I can’t let my forgiveness become foolish.

A writer's life is never boring when you have imaginary friends to play with!

All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying -- a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings, if only for an hour.

If you get too attached to how you want it to come out the other side, you freeze. I try to trust that it will work out in the end.

Ad astra per aspera. Translated: "to the stars through difficulties".

Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.

I think the U.K. is too small to write about from within it and still make it seem foreign and exotic and interesting.

And when Elvis was unhappy, believe me, everyone was unhappy.

Americans are somehow obsessed with her, and something about me hit a spot with people in Japan.