"You're just sort of searching for this 'thing' and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. All music is imperfect, but in jazz since you're improvising, at least the way I play, I'm trying to follow my train of thought in a solo."

"Classical musicians do this all the time. They want perfection. So they piece things together. Eight bars of this and six bars of that. Glenn Gould said that with a recording he wanted to make perfect versions of pieces."

"Every time I listen back to solos of mine I'll hear something I like and then another phrase that I can't stand. You have to live with what you play. And the recording medium puts that on us. When I play live gigs I don't think so much like that."

"If you listen to a lot of music, it gradually seeps into your consciousness or your unconsciousness and comes out in your music."

"In the name of Hypocrites, doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival."

"Ever since I was young I loved making things and being part of the design process."

"The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is."

"Each experience through which we pass operates ultimately for our good. This is a correct attitude to adopt and we must be able to see it in that light."