The way I work, the interview never becomes larger than the person being interviewed.

History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions.

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.

Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, "God in us."

History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.

When you see a person who has been given more than you in money and beauty, then look to those who have been given less.

All right, baby, " Daphne crooned."Talk to Mama and tell me all your secrets. . . .

Black women all over the world should re-unite and re-examine the way history has portrayed us.

I feel great physically. I feel really good.

If you can't look after something in your care, you have no right to keep it.

I think we have to understand that the nation-state became powerful in the wake of the French Revolution, whereas the nation-state has become powerless in light of globalization.

I was never the cool kid, I was never hot in high school. I was never popular. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to be rich and you can still be successful.

I think if you ask the audience to like you, it's all over.

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know.