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.

I still got my Ferrari.

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

With "We Are The World," I can't even eat when I watch that on television. If I'm eatin' some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.

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.

In music, silence is more important than sound.

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.