Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.

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.

Today and every day: I offer the universe my love I offer the universe my peace I offer the universe my beauty of hope I offer the universe my deepest gratitude for her hospitality and generosity

You can't have a wrong mentality about life and expect that you will see the bright side of life.

Other nations merely change governments as a lady changes dancing partners: Canada contrives to fall in a dead faint every time the music stops.

...We understood nothing at all. Not what it meant to wish for a miracle... nor its price.

To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement.

Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.

It's astonishing what some women will put up with just to have a warm body. Some of the brightest women I know are just obsessed with that search. It's very sad.

You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty.

I do love poop. I can't help it. The heart wants what it wants. I enjoy being clever and pithy and political, but nothing's going to get me like dumb stuff.

If you slip, it doesn't mean you're less valuable. It simply means that you have something to learn from slipping.