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" When I was 14, I was a passenger in a terrible accident. "

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

" Everybody has their idiosyncrasies. "

" I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home. "

" It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play. "

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

" Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it's rough out there. But the bottom line is you've got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I'm totally addicted to traveling. "

" 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. "

" My son is a hip-hop producer. "

" 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. "

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

" Melody is king, and don't you ever forget it. Lyrics appear to be out front, but they're not; they're just an accompanying factor. If they're good, you're really in good shape. Lyrics are written to be rewritten. "

" After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument. "

" I don't remember feeling love. "

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

" I've met every freak in the business. "

" Everybody, no matter what vocation they're looking at, should add music as an essential to their curriculum. Music can be a very important part of your soul and your growth as a human being. It's so powerful. "

" 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 believe in astrology as much as I do in genetics. "

" The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious. "

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

" My grandmother had this high-tech security system - a rusty nail she used to lock the door. "

" To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft. "

" I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe. "

" Unfortunately, America doesn't have a minister of culture, and I don't understand why. It's really bad for young people. "

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

" When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray Charles. That's the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older. "

" I don't ever want to grow up. That's boring. "

" I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is. "

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

" Cherish your mistakes, and you won't keep making them over and over again. It's the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, and they'll put some wealth in you. "