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.

Instead of being disappointed about where you are, be optimistic about where you are going.

Successful people do ordinary things with extraordinary consistency, commitment and focus.

Dust on gold doesn't change the nature of gold.

I think that's important to remember - That we're blessed to even be able to attempt to do this [music].

When you fuel up with purpose you find the excitement in the mundane, the passion in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary.

[Charlie Parker] was kind of a sponge and intrigued by it all.That's similar to what Phil [Woods] told me about Bird, too. Like he was into cooking. He was just into a lot of things. Yeah, it's about dealing with bebop and jazz and Trane [John Coltrain] and post-Trane and knowing the history. But you've got to live. You have to experience things. Know something in this world. So it was a very deep education about what it means to try and be an artist.