My future starts when I wake up every morning.

I can hear what I want [people] to play. If you don't hear what you want someone to play, then you can't tell 'em.

I did Bronislaw Kaper's tune. He wrote "On Green Dolphin Street." I mean, I did all those ballads, all them ballads from South America. All those tunes - the guitar concerto on Sketches Of Spain. All those are Spanish melodies. Some of them we made up ourselves.

White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything - you know what I mean?

Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.

Birth of the Cool' became a collector's item, I think, out of a reaction to Bird and Dizzy's music. Bird and Diz played this hip, real fast thing, and if you weren't a fast listener, you couldn't catch the humor or the feeling in their music. Their musical sound wasn't sweet, and it didn't have harmonic lines that you could easily hum out on the street with your girlfriend trying to get over with a kiss.

Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.