Every conversation is a form of Jazz. The activity of instantaneous creation is as ordinary to us as breathing.

Paradoxically, the more you are yourself, the more universal your message. As you develop and individuate more deeply, you break through into deeper layers of the collective consciousness and the collective unconsciousness.

Creativity can replace conformity as the primary mode of social being. . . . We can cling to that which is passing, or has already passed, or we can remain accessible to-even surrender to-the creative process, without insisting that we know in advance the ultimate outcome for us, our institutions, or our planet. To accept this challenge is to cherish freedom, to embrace life, and to find meaning.

I no longer sought skill, flexibility, strength, endurance, muscle tone, and quick responsiveness as means of imposing my will on the instrument, but rather of keeping an open and unrestricted pathway for the creative impulse to play its music straight from the preconscious depths beneath and beyond me.

An improviser does not operate from a formless vacuum, but from three billion years of organic evolution

The conception, composition, practice, and performance of a piece of music can blossom in a single moment.

The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.