Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

Out of Coltrane's whole history, there are things which I think are great from all the periods.

It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.

Names and theoretical things don't occur to me. If they do, I'm not doing my real playing mode.

I always felt as a horn player, a jam session wasn't satisfying enough for me. I should have been a rhythm section player, actually.

I hear many extra-musical things somehow in Coltrane.

I love Indian music very much, but I haven't studied that specifically.

A first love always occupies a special place.

You just keep playing. If someone special comes along and organizes it in a new way, then you'll have another approach and everybody will jump on it to try to learn.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.

Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.

I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.

Many people do think it's naive to improvise in front of paying customers. I'm not saying one way is better than another.

Sound is the first thing that we tune into.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

We all learn from each other, and I never really hung out with guys in that way, so I missed out.

A lot of bands were doing remotes from ballrooms around the country.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.

It's very demanding to make up your own music.

I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.

After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

I listen to classical music very much. There's a lot of jazz that I don't enjoy listening to.

Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.

I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.

I wish that person outside would stop coughing.

I was taking a nose dive somewhere between eleven and twelve because my sister had died and I was practicing something that siblings do which is follow in their footsteps and die as well.

Why don't we hear more about and from Asians when it comes to race in America? Are Asians the new Invisible Man - there but not there? In some ways, yeah. Blacks and whites are always carping about the metrics of racism. And any conversation about immigration reform is immediately flipped into a referendum on Hispanics.

I like writing better. Because I don't have to wear makeup, I don't have to be thin, and I don't have to remember lines.

Times were very hard if you were a poor, politically correct Jewish girl living in the east end of London during the Blitz and you were trying to eke out a living as a hairdresser.

I love Karl Rove. He elected Bush.

Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.

Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

If you make a hiring mistake make the change quickly. Dont ignore problems. Dont assume it will get better.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

The Lord does not forgive excuses, He forgives sin.

I'm a bit claustrophobic, I know that now.

Experience is a legitimate issue when John McCain raises it about Obama, and it's also legitimate for us to raise it about Palin.

It is impossible for human beings not to view something subjectively.

You know, OJ was a really nice guy, and he knew his lines. He was nice to everybody on the set. He got to be a better actor, I thought, with every movie.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Clouds and darkness are round most men and it is the preacher's business to let the sunlight in. A congregation needs nothing so much as sun.

Fashion does not have to prove that it is serious. It is the proof that intelligent frivolity can be something creative and positive.

With the spread of conformity and image-driven superficiality, the allure of an individuated woman in full possession of herself and her powers will prove irresistible. We were born for plenitude and inner fulfillment.

The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy.

From the ashes, a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring.

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.