You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

I don't like to box myself in when I'm composing.

I always try to think of a vocabulary to match different musical situations.

I just consider myself a student, trying to learn more about it.

I felt that I had been influenced by being in the city enough and I wanted to go off by myself to see what was going on. I remember going out there and looking in the mirror and thinking I wasn't anything.

You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

I've always been interested in shaping music in odd ways, with odd riffs and that's been probably something that I've continued on with my studies with improvisation as I'm working with people.

I'm approaching a period in my life though where I'd like to be totally absorbed into music, doing concerts, writing something. Basically, that IS what I am doing.

What I try to impart to a musician is to really try to practice the instrument in a really sincere way. Learn as much about music as you possibly can. Learn composition. Study to try to create compositions of your own and put your own personal touch on your music.

I like to hear melodies that go from one extreme to the next- saxophone to a bell to a whistle, for instance.

I remember times when the whole music scene was just flourishing.

If you listen to nature, all the sounds are done in a confident way. I'm trying to do that.

Creating sounds together with other musicians is something I've always liked doing.

I noticed that when it came time to improvise, my students would often make mistakes.

I think the best thing you can teach a person is how to learn. And once they discover their own individual approach to that - which is inside all of us - then all of a sudden, they've opened up a door of endless resources.

I'm the kind of guy that if I go to a concert and hear something that knocks me out, I don't want to be left out of that. I'm going to try to get into that, and I'm running back home to practice.

I'm trying to learn to really use space. My philosophy is that every time you interrupt space in a very confident, secure manner, then music happens.

If you're playing with a number of people, there are all sorts of textures, all kinds of possibilities you can get into. So why just play a theme together and then take solos?

It wasn't until I got out of the Army and I heard Coltrane's record 'Coltrane,' when he was doing 'Inch Worm' and 'Out of This World,' that I thought, 'Oh my God, you can do that?' And then I thought, 'OK, I better go back and listen to Eric Dolphy a bit.' And then I said, 'Hmm, I better pull out these Ornette Coleman records.'

Life is short, and, once somebody is gone, they're gone.

Man, I used to go around and think, 'Oh my God, what must it be like to be going down the street, and someone asks you, 'What's your name?' and the reply would be, 'John Coltrane.' I couldn't imagine what that would be like.

Music has a way of getting under your skin.

My central quest was to have a piece played on the saxophone sound like more than one instrument, exploiting different registers and wide interval leaps.

This is what really makes real jazz musicians: people coming out with their own voice.

To be a good improviser, you have to study composition as a parallel. Because what improvisation is, on a high level, is spontaneous composition.

What I'm after is a composed music that will sound like improvised music when improvisors play it. You shouldn't be able to tell what parts are being improvised and what parts were written out beforehand; it should sound like the same music.

You can work on music a few lifetimes.

I'm a British intern going in. I'm hoping that John will just kind of tackle it from who this person is and what she's about rather than trying to go in on her culture. We need to move a step forward than that.

If people can't relate to something, there's no use of the song being there.

A tapper sticks to existing routines. Whereas hoofing... a hoofer pushes the art form.

The best decision I made at NYU was joining the Shakespeare ensemble. It literally led to everything I did after that. It gave me the kind of confidence I really needed.

I'm not sure I had a political career for the future anyway. I'm not sure that politics was what I wanted to spend my life doing.

We should allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines. That will create a true 50-state national marketplace which will drive down the cost of low-cost, catastrophic health insurance.

I learned early on that in the real world, the masks of tragedy and comedy adorn the proscenium of every life.

It's really ironic that I won, because that's not the goal that I had in mind when I went out to skate.

I like helping people.

We can't worry about who we don't have. We have to go into these games with the guys we have.

Openness explains the ability to innovate and come up with big ideas because you're open to them, and fluid intelligence explains the ability to go and execute.

Every contrition for sin is apt to encourage a not quite charitable wish that other people should exhibit a similar contrition.

I think technology has advanced so far now that there are some cameras on the market that give film a run for its money. It's all about flexibility in capturing images, and digital or film, it doesn't matter to me.

We began our 'Luxe Life' and 'Vegas DeLuxe daily columns' not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and we've spent a decade bringing you showbiz stories and star scoops. I hope it continues for a long time to come because I honestly feel that all the late nights and around-the-clock hours to be first and fast keep me young.

No social stability without individual stability.

People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.

All religions have always hated females.

Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.

You don't have to get things done all the time to be productive.

I like medicine. Even if I was selling a million books a year, I would still be a doctor.

Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth truths are found only in the depths of thought.

Going across the Tannai Desert was one of the spookiest experiences I've ever had. Not driving during the day; that was fine. And so we camped in an old sort of truck siding, I think. And the silence. The eerie silence and then a dingo howling, and it was just so spooky. I didn't sleep all night.