"You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it's bad."

"A goal is a dream with a finish line."

"You've got to find a way of saying it without saying it."

"I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right."

"There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!"

"Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven't; there's no proof of it."

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."

"Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one."

"New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky."

"Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone."

"A musical profit outweighs a financial loss."

"If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!"

"Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself."

"It's like an act of murder-you play with intent to commit something."

"My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?"

"I like any and all of my associations with music -writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky."

"There is no art when one does something without intention."

"Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did."

"What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?"

"If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!"

"Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one."

"Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did."

"Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing."

"Music is the tonal reflection of beauty."