The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best.

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.

My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.

One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.

Music is not the only reason that I practice Buddhism anymore because it has affected my whole life.

Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.

Back in the day for me was a great time in my life - I was in my 20s. Most people refer to their experiences in their twenties as being a highlight in their life. It's a period of time where you often develop your own way, your own sound, your own identity, and that happened with me, when I was with a great teacher - Miles Davis.

Being vulnerable is allowing yourself to trust. That's hard for a lot of people to do. They feel a lot more secure if they kind of put walls around themselves. Then they don't have to trust anybody but themselves.

I like to be on the edge, on the cutting edge, or be into the unknown, into the territory where I have to depend on being in the moment and depending on my instincts.

When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.

I've been curious ever since I was a little kid.

All you have to do is play one note. But it needs to be the right note.

It's not easy to play in a framework that requires simplicity and to tastefully find ways to interject the kind of freedom that we have in playing jazz.

My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.

Hip-hop is all over the planet.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.

It's part of my nature. I get excited when trying out new stuff, whether it be an idea or equipment. It stimulates my juices.

We need to put into practice the idea of embracing other cultures. We need to be shaping the kind of world we want to live in instead of waiting for someone else or some other entities to do it for us.

Music truly is the universal language.

I don't see how we can have both the freedoms we had before and the safety net that we all need considering the way the world is today. And that's just because human beings can't trust each other. We've given in over and over to some of the darkest elements that exist in life itself.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.

When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being?

There's good times and bad times. That's part of the coaching. You live with the ups and downs of it but at the end, it's about not only winning games, it's about developing men.

In life, there's second chances. But that doesn't mean everyone gets a second chance with your team. That's where your moral compass comes in.

I'm very observant. I see more than people think I'm seeing.

I've always said that your attitude is your best friend and your worst enemy.

The thing you miss most, when you don't play and you don't coach, is the huddle. You miss the huddle. You miss the ability to walk in the room where collectively players are from everywhere. Every race, every religion, every color. It don't matter, because you've got a common goal. You're trying to be something special as a team.

If you draft a player to be a backup, why did you draft him? You're drafting a guy because you think he's worthy of being drafted at that spot, but you're also drafting him because you think he can compete. If you're going to say, 'This guy's a backup,' - really? That doesn't make any sense to me.

No one player is bigger than the team.

I grew up in the early '60s, and there was a lot of civil rights, a lot of unrest in our country.

You don't quit in sports. You retire. You don't get to quit. It's not an option.

I'm a neat freak.

It has to be the right fit. Coaching is about fits.

My passion is from my mom. She was passionate about leaving Germany and coming to America and making a life for her and her family. My father - discipline, a chain of command, it works this way.

To be quite honest, and anybody will tell you, growing up I was going to be a pro athlete. I didn't have any option. That was my way out.

I am a head coach in the NFL today because of the opportunity the Coaching Fellowship provided me. The program is really the thing that jump-starts your career.

As a coach, you're like a teacher. You don't give the players their talent. God gives them talent, but you can give them knowledge, and you can give them information.

When I wake up, I don't worry about why the mountain is there. I just start climbing.

You're in pro football, it's kind of interesting, because when you win, you draft last. In college football, you recruit. You gotta go after guys.

The rules of the game really have given the offense an advantage, especially with pass interference.

Curtis Martin just has to be Curtis Martin, and whatever that is, that's good enough. He doesnt have to be Clark Kent or Lois Lane.

Too often, people equate discipline with cursing. When you go to Catholic school, the nuns don't curse a word, but you get discipline.

People who've watched me on television, they go, 'Oh, that's who this guy is.' So when I walk into their home, they say, 'Coach, you're that same guy! We trust you with our son.'

You play to win the game.