You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.

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 seems to me that the good lord in his infinate wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable- hope, jokes, and dogs. But the greatest of these was dogs.

Romance is dead - it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece.

Everything beautiful has to be worked for.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Stevie Wonder doing 'We Can Work It Out' by the Beatles is one of my favorite records of all time.

Nobody wants me as a Cabinet Minister and they are perfectly right. I am an agitator, not an administrator.

I'm not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

Understand suffering is a part of my karma, otherwise you will spoil your future karma also.

Most of the Palestinians don't understand what they're doing... Politically, people can say what they want. The problem is not political, but religious.

Beauty is the radiance of truth, and the frangrance of goodness.