Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.

There is no art when one does something without intention.

The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?

Simplicity is a most complex form

The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse.

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.

The word [jazz] never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the 1920s I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing 'Negro music'. But it's too late for that now.