They [police] do me like that all the time! "What you work for?".

If you love them in the morning with their eyes full of crust; if you love them at night with their hair full of rollers, chances are, you're in love.

I don't like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there's no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don't know.

The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

We don't play to be seen. I'm addicted to music, not audiences.

In other words, an instrument should be an extension of you; it's supposed to sound like you - the way you walk, the way you dress, you know.