I will have a song that I'm in love with for a couple of months and then I'll go to something else. That's just constantly changing. And sometimes I will go back to old one that I haven't heard for a long time.

They played so good it was frightening. And I, of course, being young, was in awe of everything that was going on and rightly so. I mean, it was too good to believe.

[Thelonious] Monk is a subject in itself. I mean, most piano players in most big bands sit down and they play with the band, you know. But Monk would just sit there like this. And all of a sudden there'd be a pause from all the trumpets and everything and Monk would go 'plink!' like that. And everybody would go 'Yeah!

A 'For Sale' sign in your yard during the holidays is like a 'kick me' sign. You are telling buyers you are a distressed seller.

The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.

I went up to his [Hank Jones'] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York.

Jazz is something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.