Your mind is a positive asset. Use it for positive thoughts.

Well, I'm too old to pimp, and too young to die, so I'm just gonna keep playin'

Imitate, assimilate, and innovate.

I believe that regardless of how many people you've listened to or emulated over the years, your sound is you and what you really feel inside.

Your sound is you & what you really feel inside.

Imitate, assimilate & innovate.

Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school.

I was very thrilled to witness the workby my ol' buddy Jim Widner whose expertise in the field of jazz education proved invaluable in putting this masterful CD (Yesterdays & Today) together.

The idea is to make the ingredients sing, not a grand opera, but a jolly chanson.

When I went to college, my goal was to be a college history teacher. I majored in history.

What would become of the world if the condemned started to confide their heartaches to the executioners?

There always has to be someone to take the punches. That's how it works. It isn't fair, it isn't right, but that kid licking slop off the floor over there means that we get to eat in peace.

I was aware of the risks I was taking, but I did'nt care.

That decision to commit your life to certain principles and a certain narrative, if I wrote a paper on that, I know I'd find inconsistencies.

A child's job is to test her boundaries, a parent's is to see that she survives the test.

Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il desire. The heart that sighs does not have what it desires.

While you can think in terms of efficiency in dealing with time, a principle-centered person thinks in terms of effectiveness in dealing with people.

I don't want to play fat cops for the rest of my life.