The Turtle Won The Race
"It's been a very kind of subjective, I guess you'd say journey. Subjective but, hopefully, universal. That was always my optimism - that if I described my own change through whatever the decade was throwing at us, that there were others like me. And it turned out that there were."
"Less than love is nothing
And nothing is not enough
And more than anything
I wish you love
Less than love is nothing
And nothing is not enough
And more than anything
I wish you love, wish you love"
"It's the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It's only honesty makes it beautiful."
"Since at the beginning and end of our lives we are completely dependent on the kindness of others, how can it be that in the middle we would neglect kindness toward others?"
"I try to be prepared for the moment through understanding and being warmed up, knowing all about chords and scales, so I don't even have to think and I can get right down to what it is I want to say."
"Time is a monster that can not be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to our impatience, then it races like a gazelle when you can't catch your breath."
"Now if you had a voice somewhere inside that had to be used, you would find a place to go. Players would find a place to go. And they would find their voice. That's survival. I think it's important to remember that jazz is about survival. It's not about commercial. It starts out as a cultural survival. Singing in the fields was not for no reason, and it was not for an audience, so what's left? It was for them, it was for their survival. Now we might think about having a good life, but we don't often think about survival. If we don't think of it as a culture we might not think of it as individuals, and if we don't think of it as individuals, we won't have jazz."
"Freedom from hate unconditionally; Freedom from self pity; Freedom from fear of possibly doing something that may help someone else more than it would him, and Freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he is better than his brother."
"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for, perfection is God's business."