Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

Man, as long as people want to hear Jazz, I'll give it to them.

All art is communication of the artists' ideas, sounds, thoughts; without that no one will support the artist.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

I'm motivated. The spirit hits me and I just keep going and don't stop. The more I play, the more I can invent, the more ideas come to me.

It's always Jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of clothes she's the same old broad.

Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid.

Music was our wife and we loved her. We stayed with her, clothed her and put diamond rings on her hands.

I always figured I'd still be playing at this age.

Let go yesterday and hold out for tomorrow, the future is in the palm of your hand.

If we don't protect what we have, it will be destroyed.

When you are stuck in the same routine for months, you stop seeing new opportunities.

You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it.

I have been tried and condemned without a hearing, and I suppose I shall have to go to the execution.

Money talks. And writes. And publishes. And reviews. But it can't read.

It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.

inventiveness is childish, practice sublime.

I am so not technically proficient at all.

The note of hallelujah must never be in short supply in the spirit of the believer.