I've heard the sound of 70 condoms being scraped over the floor at the British Museum. It feels like being an adventurer. Why would you stay in your living room if you could go out and experience things no one's ever experienced?

I dont like Jews. Or colored folk. Or natives, now that you mention it...I bet you like Catholics. Cant stand them either. Nor women, Fabians, Socialists, homosexuals, Asians, or British.

Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.

Chaos is hateful. That indeterminate nature of war brings a really unsettling atmosphere to life.

Often people try and just consider music as music, in a musical context. People seem to forget that music is not just audio material - it's also the artwork, the packaging it comes in.

I think rhythm is, when you talk about rhythmic sensibility, quite perceptive in that I like to have at least one thing that is at least common or familiar to the audience.

You always come back to Duke Ellington - he's kind of like the thread that holds everything together from the big band descending to lots of jazz, actually.