"I don't like to be called a jazz musician. I'm a musician."

"Seems to me that the people who all the time talking about what's wrong with the world, are the same ones who ain't doing nothing to make it right."

"I don't think I'm a legend. I'm just a cat who blows a horn."

"I don't play to the gallery. I play for myself, and if the gallery likes it, that's fine."

"I never tried to be anything but myself. I just played my horn the way I felt it."