Some days you get up and put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win. Some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die and the horn wins.

The idea of life is to give and receive.

Where there's no mutual respect, there's trouble!

Mutual respect is so important because as soon as it disappears in relations between you and the next person, there's trouble.

You can't steal a gift. Bird [Charlie Parker] gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.

Miles got a mystique about him-plus he's at the top of his profession. And he's got way, way, way more money.

I used to do a lot of apologizing for what the State Department had done.