Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears.

The piano ain't got no wrong notes.

The inside of the tune [the bridge] is the part that makes the outside sound good.

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

At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. There's no beat anymore. You can't keep time with your foot. I believe that what is happening to jazz with people like Ornette Coleman, for instance, is bad. There's a new idea that consists in destroying everything and find what's shocking and unexpected; whereas jazz must first of all tell a story that anyone can understand.

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

I didn't know there were 2 ten o'clocks in a day.