What makes bebop legitimate is the fact that when it was done, it was illegitimate.

The iconoclastic mode, that specific mode of language, there is an element of it that it is punk - that is confrontational. That's just a part of the language of jazz - at a certain point.

Bud Powell's probably the biggest influence on my piano playing.

His name, even, is part of the marketing scheme, I mean, Thelonious Sphere Monk - how can you think of a better name to fit his style of playing?

I can imagine an utter hatred for the jazz avant-garde.

I like people not being able to be pigeon-holed.

People come from a certain generation and a certain whole way of looking at things, and you really do become a prisoner of your own world.

Thelonious Sphere Monk: there's not a more perfect name to fit his compositions than that name.

When inspiration is silent reason tires quickly.

... the only thing that makes life worthwhile is loving orher people and being loved by them. - Pia Obrian

I will follow anyone and tell everyone my message because it is urgent: Please humanity Protect Yazidis.

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

Speak only the speech that neither torments self nor does harm to others. That speech is truly well spoken.

There's nothing funny about, 'Yeah, I took a First Class plane ticket and I went to some designer beach and made out with a Laotian slave girl.' Who cares?

Playwrights are the most gregarious writers - to get our work done, we need actors, directors, set designers.

My femininity is always something I've tried to preserve in this dog-eat-dog world.

How unprepared we are for a terrorist attack.