Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.

Amsterdam must have more than a million people. But the only area where jazz is really profitable and successful in an economic sense is in Japan. That's because they haven't been exposed enough.

Sponsors and networks will really go all out and simply evaluate people on the basis of talent.

Jazz is America's own. It is played and listened to by all peoples - in harmony together. Pigmentation differences have no place... as in genuine democracy, only performance counts.

If you don't get substantially what you want, be ready to walk. And don't look back.

There are very few groups that really stay together. The leaders of groups make enough money to be able to afford to work a maximum of 35-40 weeks a year.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn't take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren't interested in it.

Germans at the time believed, a little oddly, that dyes killed germs by turning the germs’ vital organs the wrong color.

State your point. If the opposite party doesn't agree, state it harder- with a punch.

Faith begins as an experiment and ends as an experience.

The only question now is: How much can I hang on to?

Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul.

If writing and publishing a book is like giving birth to a child, then book marketing is like rearing it.

Although the world places a premium on the latest things, some realities are discovered by looking into the past.

Laughter... the most civilized music in the world.

Happiness," said he, "must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.

We can influence the future but not see it.