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" If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up. "

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" When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly. "

" I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music. "

" When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all. "

" Circumstances can be very important. Find the right people to work with. "

" Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work. "

" You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others. "

" To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration. "

" The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach the baritone in intensity. "

" I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down. "

" Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same. "

" When I first started playing music in 1955, there was just a small body of people that knew it. It was a very esoteric type of thing. "

" It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up. "

" The more original something is, the more of a threat it seems until the people catch up with it. That happened with Thelonious Monk. It happened with anybody who is really original. "

" I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz. "

" I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed. "

" Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register. "

" Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention. "

" The soprano turned out to sound to me like the right hand on the piano. "

" You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use. "

" I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone. "

" Saxophone is one thing, and music is another. "

" The potential for the saxophone is unlimited. "

" The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music. "

" I fell in love with jazz when I was 12 years old from listening to Duke Ellington and hearing a lot of jazz in New York on the radio. "

" Bamboo is not a weed, it's a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant. "

" Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first. "

" Kenny G, I have to be grateful to him for proving that the instrument can be played all different kinds of ways. "

" I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever. "

" If you have music you want to play that no one asks you to play, you have to go out and find where you can play it. It's called do or die. "

" You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good. "