Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I'll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I'd never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I'd never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn't much like it at first.

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it... If you're going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you'll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.