...people will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand...That's what I thought was happening when Ornette hit town.

It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just there and I don't question it.

If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

Music is the framework around the silence.

You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played

We don't play to be seen. I'm addicted to music, not audiences.

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He's still a nice young man, only confused.

To keep creating you have to be about change.