When people ask me how is it I was a musician, I facetiously say that I'm a firm believer in reincarnation and in a previous life I was Johann Sebastian Bach's guide dog.

Perfect retention. I dont think I could do that-Ive never disciplined myself to do it.I suppose a lot of it is a question of discipline. Which improvisation is not.

Learn the rules and then break them in such a way as to exercise good taste.

I always tell people, it took me 10 minutes and 35 years in the business. I get tired of playing it ["Lullaby of Birdland"], but not of collecting the royalties.

My affiliation with England is borne out by the fact that I do come back for periodic visits.

The way it works: The orchestra plays a few selections of its own and I terminate the first part of the programme on piano, usually with a movement from a Mozart concerto.

If you establish an identity, you build a monster-and thats right, youve got to live with it. Of course, you can enjoy it, too.

Can anybody be given creativity? No. Only equipment to develop it if it's in them in the first place.

You know, when you've established a certain thing, what can you do? You're stuck with it.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

In Braille you write your flat sign first and then your note.

Spirit of spirits!

It's hard to be less than happy when you can be happy with less.

Before you get in trouble, it pays to ask yourself how you'll get out again.

Instead they choose to accept their fallibilities. They recognised the simplicity and power of using a checklist.

Donald Trump is actually a loser.

Nobody seems to know yet how television is going to affect the radio, movies, love, housekeeping or the church, but it has definitely revived vaudeville.

Any allegation of runaway capitalism has to be tempered by the observation that today we have the largest public sectors and the highest taxes the world has ever known.

Sometimes we forget that the top of the wave, the top of the crest is always the bottom, there is no inside without an outside, and there is no up without a down.

In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality.

The knowledge that every day there is something more to learn, something higher to reach for, something new to make for others, makes each day infinitely precious