"Jazz is the false liquidation of art—instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture."

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."

"Destructive or redemptive, degenerate or transformative? Jazz is a phenomenon, a true world music."

"Jazz, often called America's classical music, so influenced our culture that Americans named a decade after it. Like …"

"When people hear the word "jazzman," the first thing they think is unemployed, then dope and sex, but the young guys …"

"When they study our civilization two thousand years from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be …"

"By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with."

"Well, feel something in B-flat, motherfucker."

"I want to be considered a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday. I take 242 choruses; …"

"Jazz is something Negroes invented, and it said the most profound things—not only about us and the way we look …"