Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.

I don't know what other people are doing - I just know about me.

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.

It's always night, or we wouldn't need light.

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

A genius is the one most like himself.

The loudest noise in the world is silence.