We don't play to be seen. I'm addicted to music, not audiences.

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.

The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.

A vow is a heavenly created obligation in motion that only ends when fully completed.

An unlimited supply of wonder and trust, bolsters life lived as a process of discovery.

When Christ returns, and only then, will the angel's message to the shepherds be totally fulfilled: Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

Speech is a rolling press that always amplifies one's emotions.

The measure of a civilization is how it treats those at the dawn of life, the margins of life and the twilight of life.

Sometimes it feels like my life is just one long day.

On the reals, all these crab niggaz know the deal, When we start the revolution, all they'll probably do is squeal.

Some is more equal than others, as is well known. It ain't that your majority is outnumbered, you're just out-surrounded.

In an inconspicuous way, Gretchen Parlato knows how to play the same instrument that Frank Sinatra played. There's no one out there like Gretchen.