Religion is like drugs, it destroys the thinking mind.

I'll bet there aren't too many people hooked on crack who can play the bagpipes.

Regarding jam sessions: Jazz musicians are the only workers I can think of who are willing to put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I like to say two things in life that mean the most: genetics and luck. When you look at it realistically, genetics is luck too. Because you could have been born in some really terrible situation and never had a chance to realize yourself or see who you were. And so the luck of genetics and then after that, circumstances, those are the two guiding things.

In my neighborhood - West 121st Street in New York, "white Harlem" - there were only two drugs: smack and marijuana. By the time I was 13, some friends and I were using marijuana fairly regularly. The Reefer Madness myth was still very strong then, but I'd been into jazz and those lyrics included so many casual references to pot that it was completely demystified for me.

There are only two types of motorists: the idiots who drive slower than me, and the lunatics who go faster.