If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

Just because I'm playing Jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.

Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'

They're singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.

I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.