There is an idea that a mind is wasted on the arts unless it makes you good in math or science. There is some evidence that the arts might help you in math and science.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying.

My schedule is always tight. But I like to have the pressure of having to finish doing something; it gives me an added edge.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time.

Thank the good Lord for a job.

Jazz music is America's past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of human achievement, an ultimate value of art.