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" I'm just a musician and a record producer. "

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" I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television. "

" I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day. "

" My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade. "

" I'm Pisces with Leo rising. The Pisces part is the dreamer. The Leo says, 'Let's execute.' "

" You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F. "

" Sidney Poitier and Sidney Lumet were instrumental in helping me get started as the first black composer to get name credit for movie scores. "

" I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens. "

" I was the most subtle person in the world. "

" I don't remember feeling love. "

" I'd been in love before - I was always in love. "

" When I was 14, I would sit up in my room and write till my eyes would bleed. "

" I didn't understand key signatures or anything, you know. I'd say silly things at the top of a trumpet part like, 'Note, when you play B naturals, make the B naturals a half step lower because they sound funny if they're B naturals.' And some guy said: 'Idiot, just put a flat on the third line and it's a key signature, you know?' "

" A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape! "

" When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out. "

" I'm probably the only one in the world you can name that's worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. 'Fly Me to the Moon' was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. I'm the only one. "

" I was rapping in 1939. It's old. The roots are complex. And kids don't know. "

" All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls. "

" After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever. "

" Without the Fender bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything. "

" It slaps your dignity just right. I loved the idea of these proud, dignified black men, and I saw the older ones wounded, and it wounded me ten times as much because I couldn't stand seeing them hurt like this. "

" I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it. "

" When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it. "

" Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing. "

" I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.' "

" I like all music. The only music I don't like is bad music. "

" I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me. "

" I'm a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from. "

" Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know? "

" Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important. "

" Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go. "