I don't pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is myself...and I'm too vain to play anything I think is bad.

At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

Sometimes [playing free] doesn't happen, because maybe a guy's wife'll come in, you know, and his ego will catch him. If everybody's completely just straight-without any old ladies over here, a fourth of whisky over there; if it's balanced right, it'll come off. It has to be. But when you get egos involved with playing free, you can't do it.

I never thought that the music called "jazz" was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

If you're going to drop behind, you have to keep it there.