All we can do is go about our work. But we can have a goal. We can have a dream.

Failure is not meant to be final and fatal.... It is meant to refine you to be all that you are meant to be.

Benny Carter came up to me and said to me, "You know, in the whole history of the alto, I think Phil is the guy we should all be emulating." The king! So look, I'm so blessed that my first hero took me in.

Definitely I had a lot of times where I was really hard on myself. Really frustrated. But I never felt like I had someplace else to go. Just had to stay here and deal with this.

I had a lot of bad habits in how I was playing the horn. And I slowly, in high school and college, started to recognize them and get them a little better. But it was not an overnight process, I'll say that.

I think [Phil Wood] didn't suffer fools gladly, but he loved supporting young people that loved the music.

The best thing you can do is just go and have fun with [competition].