"I would never have become music director of the Chicago Symphony, which would have been an extremely sad loss"

"Music is my religion"

"Music is the shorthand of emotion"

"My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary"

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away"

"Music is the universal language of mankind"

"All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff"

"I've always been into melodies. That's what I love about music – a good melody that gives you goosebumps"

"Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music"

"Hell has been described as a pocket edition of Chicago"

"Jazz vision is the fusion of music and art a real paradox of same-yet different. Here we play in exchanges, like the hardness of the key of c# major and from the softness of Db major - capturing, reflecting and improvising"