American Quotes

Pakistan is an old ally of the United States.

Let's remember that the revolution in Tahrir Square was not anti-American, it was not anti-Israeli, it was for democracy and freedom. That's a good thing.

Initial reports are encouraging. In the end of the day, it's going to be deeds, not words, that matter.

In a military operation, the command and control elements are a legitimate target.

I think it is very important for any U.S. administration to be clear that America stands on the side of freedom and democracy and respect for individual rights.

Yeah, improvising only really works 100% when you're with somebody.

A lot of times I think people, when they're doing a movie that's a family movie, they're worried about this being too esoteric or too dark or too weird.

When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.

We're here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference in this planet. That's what art forms are about.

There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice.

Some tracks are with quartet and some tracks are with synthesizer.

James Cotton is a real blues guy, and he played with Muddy Waters, and it surprised me that they would want me to make a record with them, that he called me to do this record. I'd never done anything like that before. But I love blues, so I was very happy.

It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there.

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives, especially people who aren't exposed to creative music.

I just sit down at the piano and rattle it off.

I just see myself as a human being that's concerned about life.

I have music inside me and I'm very lucky to be able to play music and that's the way that I try to do it.

I always told the people at Cal Arts that if they wanted me to do Jazz studies, first of all, there couldn't be a big band within 500 miles and that I could do what I wanted to do. And they said I could.

As long as there are musicians who have a passion for spontaneity, for creating something that's never been before, the art form of jazz will flourish.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

When writing isn't going well-then the bad thing about being a writer is that I also have the freedom and flexibility to do something badly, and no one else can fix it for me.

There's something about each of my books that I'm really proud of, and there's something about each of my books that I cringe over.

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

It's just so much fun to make up characters, situations, and everything else about a story. I have so much freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want.

I write a book over a period of months or years, and when I'm done with it, usually another year goes by before I see it in print. It's hard to be patient and wait.

I was lucky enough not to face any required summer reading lists until I went to college. So I still think of summer as the best time to read for fun.

I think I learned a lot from reading in general - even from reading badly written books.

I started trying to write when I was in second or third grade.