I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

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

Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.

Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do.

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

I never though much about race.

Be-bop wasn't developed in any deliberate way.