Musician Quotes

I have been to hell and back. I had a very, very bad nervous breakdown.

I grew up in a show business family, so we've always had a great sense of balance, being so close to my parents.

Girls are always running through my mind. They don't dare walk.

Even my older brothers' early success 10 years ago didn't change me since there was such an age difference.

Before, I was terrified on stage. I only play guitar during the acoustic songs. After a while, you can elicit certain responses from the crowd, like Elvis.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair.

Love is sweeping the country.

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.

A song without music is a lot like H2 without the O.

Life is one long jubilee.

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.

Remember that I was out of the closet at the age of sixteen. My parents knew I was gay; I'd had to tell them.

People say things about me all the time and I get over it. I've had some appalling things told about me.

Part of me looks at the gay movement now and worries that we're losing our individuality.

I'm not responsible enough to have a dog - or a child.

I'm always being inspired .

I'd got very successful, everyone knew who I was, but I felt very empty.