Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

I find my inspiration in myself.

I was playing birthday parties. House-rent parties where they used to sell whisky during prohibition.

I have to listen to New York; I live there. I wasn't born there, but I've been living there all my life.

I don't have a definition of Jazz. You're just supposed to know it when you hear it.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.