I think you have to be completely merciless with yourself.

... The 'cleverness' syndrome has taken the place of melody. It's like everyone has come down with this terrible disease in jazz....you are always expected to do your own material, which is a strange thing to do if you're a poor composer but a great player.

I'm not talking ideas, or even presentation. It's like in politics: You have to sell something to become an electric player - like your skin or your heart.

I believe that a truly valuable artist must be an artist who realizes the impossibility of his task -and then continues to do it.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

Once we're inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

If sound is music and came from silence, then silence is potentially greater than sound. If the sound is effective, it should actually have a chemical - some sort of physiological - effect on the listener, so he doesn't have to hear that sound again.