I'm fortunate that I'm making a living at it now because I'm not equipped to do anything else.

But if I didn't have to make money, I would still play my horn.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time.

America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms; its humor; its music.

How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.