Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.

I came from an era when we didn't use electronic instruments. The bass wasn't even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.

You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it's beautiful, not necessarily commercial.

I appreciate men like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins very much.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Well, after I had the heart attack, it was a very simple choice. What the doctor told me I did and I did it religiously. I ate nothing but lean turkey breast or chicken breast or a piece of fish that was very lean. I mean I stayed away from everything.

From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.

We believe that the European Union is facing a truly historic choice.

If you're a sports fan you realize that when you meet somebody, like a girlfriend, they kind of have to root for your team. They don't have a choice.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it's a continuing choice.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

We in this Congress have a choice. The American people have a right to exercise a choice on this issue, as to whether our men and women will continue to fight and die in a war based on deception and fantasy, or to start bringing the troops home.

The choice is between which mistake is easier to correct: underdoing it or overdoing it.

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.

I don't know whether these people are going to find themselves, but as they live their lives they have no choice but to face up to the image others have of them. They're forced to look at themselves in a mirror, and they often manage to glimpse something of themselves.

You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Soap opera wouldn't be my first choice, but at this point in my life, I would consider a soap. It would allow me to act and still do other things with my life.

Where we have the choice between putting a dollar against those that are going to advance horizontal integration and those that are going to sustain current capability, we'd rather put them against the horizontal integration activity.

Man is made or unmade by himself. By the right choice he ascends. As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, he holds the key to every situation.

At only 20 years old I got married. I was still a kid myself, but in those times, if you got someone pregnant, you had no choice but to get married. So I left school and the only thing I could do was sing.

And before our current legislature adjourns, we intend to become the first state of full and true choice by saying to every low and middle-income Hoosier family, if you think a non-government school is the right one for your child, you're as entitled to that option as any wealthy family; here's a voucher, go sign up.

It was never really my choice to be an action heroine.

This war of choice in Iraq is undermining the very fabric of American society.

Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.

There are plenty of lesbians in Hollywood, but they're not out. And that's their choice, but I can't do that, it's too important to me.

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.

I will argue my points; I will have my opinions. But at the end of the day, it's the director's choice.

While war is never anyone first choice, sometimes it is a necessary choice.

A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.

Anything you can do needs to be done, so pick up the tool of your choice and get started.

I expect the Republicans will enjoy a large bounce out of their convention. They're here wrapping themselves in the 9/11 flag, which I think is inappropriate in many ways, but it's their choice.

I could do John Wayne, Jack Benny, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and entertain my friends. But I never seriously considered it as a career choice.

As Americans, we can choose where we work and live, what we drive, which insurance plan is best for us, so why can we not give workers a choice when it comes to their retirement?

I'm pro responsible choice. You know, there is choice to abstain, choice to do contraception. There are all kinds of good choices.

Friendships in childhood are usually a matter of chance, whereas in adolescence they are most often a matter of choice.

The point of cities is multiplicity of choice.

We would very much like to see Iran take a position as a responsible leader that doesn't intimidate or threaten or scare its neighbors and others. But the choice is really up to Iran and we're going to keep working to try to come out with the right decision.