Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.

Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls.

All of the technique doesn't matter... only if the feeling is right.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.