Music was what bothered me, what interested me.

I'm not joking around when I've said occasionally, trying to learn how to play a D chord properly has been a very big thing for me.

I don't like overdubs, never liked them.

I cleaned up my act because otherwise I would have kicked the bucket.

I'm too old to do things by half.

I'm in this business for too long to be halfhearted about anything.

I don't really think about what the subject of my next album will be. I just know that I'm going to make another album.

I can concentrate on my art.

You're a musician: You play. That's what you do.

I don't know what goes on in the crowd. I've had them show up and throw beer cans at me. I caused riots in most of the major cities.

In the late '70s I started to search for the perfect sound - whatever that might be, before that I was mainly interested in drugs, insanity and the rock'n'roll lifestyle.

People think that I work out but it's all t'ai chi.

Perfect Night has that magic and it has the raw energy that grabs you by the throat.

I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

But I'm also talented and I know when I created something great and Perfect Night is something great, no doubt, no but.

I am very emotionally affected by sound. Sounds are the inexplicable... There is a sound you hear in your head, it's your nerves, or your blood running.

The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music?

One of my rules is: Never listen to your old stuff.

I love Ornette Coleman. I love Don Cherry. I love the way those guys play.

It's depressing when you're still around and your albums are out of print.

My God is rock'n'roll.

I don't think anybody is anybody else's moral compass. Maybe listening to my music is not the best idea if you live a very constricted life. Or maybe it is.

I was a product of Andy Warhol's Factory. All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that.

I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.

Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.

When I was in college, I had a jazz radio show. I called it 'Excursion on a Wobbly Rail,' after a Cecil Taylor song. I used to run around the Village following Ornette Coleman wherever he played.

I've never been super confident about anything. The work is never as good as it could be.

If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.

You can't beat 2 guitars, bass, and drums.

I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.

The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.

I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.

I think I just don't know.

It takes a busload of faith to get by.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Oh, yeah....

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.

Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.

Some of you young folks been saying to me, 'Hey Pops, what you mean what a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? They ain't so wonderful either.' But how about listening to old Pops for a minute. It seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad, but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That's the secret. Yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And man, this world would be a gasser.

Making money ain't nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat and when you die you're just as graveyard dead as he is.

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.

I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don't treat me right - shame on you.

It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend.

To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.

Unless you know what it is I ain't never going to be able to explain it to you.