Music is either good or bad, and it's got to be learned. You got to have balance.

What is Jazz? Dude, if you have to ask, you'll never know.

What is Jazz? Dude, if you have to ask, you'll never know.

The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!

What a wonderful world.

I don't get involved in politics. I just blow my horn.

The Bright Blessed Day, the Dark Sacred Night

Never play anything the same way twice.

[Bebop is] Chinese music.

It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... we contributed Louis Armstrong

Never play a thing the same way twice.

Man, if you have to ask what it [jazz] is, you’ll never know.

If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.

There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.

All them weird chords which don't mean a thing...you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to

I don't need words. It's all in the phrasing.

Love is talkative passion.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.

There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans. When that's where you left your heart. The moonlight on the bayou a creole tune that fills the air. I dream about magnolias in bloom and I'm wishin' I was there.

Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops... I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.

When you're dead, you're done.

When I was in college, I had a jazz radio show. I called it 'Excursion on a Wobbly Rail,' after a Cecil Taylor song. I used to run around the Village following Ornette Coleman wherever he played.

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.