What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

Kinship doesn't come from skin color. It's in your soul and your mind.

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies

Because I might not always have you but I'll have the feeling of you for the rest of my life

Wealth is good when it brings joy to others.

Begin where you are and what you are.

The politics around trade has always been tough, particularly in the Democratic party, because people have memories of outsourcing and job loss.

I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers, always. My heart is forever in Giverny.

People may excite in themselves a glow of compassion, not by toasting their feet at the fire, and saying: "Lord, teach me compassion," but by going and seeking an object that requires compassion.

The world is a very unjust, unfair place and we have to live with that. Historically, there is impunity for most crimes.

Catholics don't scream about Jesus, they scream about the bishop.

Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.

How clever of me. I have found such a pathway into hell that I can never get back out.