I don't hold it against Dizzy [Gillespie], you know, but if a guy wants to play a certain way, you work towards that. If he stops - he's full of crap, you know. I mean, I wouldn't do it, for no money, or for no place in the white man's world. Not just to make money, because then you don't have anything. You don't have as much money as whoever you're trying to ape; that's making money by being commercial. Then you don't have anything to give the world; so you're not important. You might as well be dead.

I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there. . . . I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday.

Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.

Like Ron Lorman's always sayin', "Na-na-na-na-na," you know what I mean? I don't need that in the studio.

I said to [Lionel] Richie, "Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs."

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That's a little bit too much.