Time & Perspective Quote by Bill Dixon

Dixon’s voice here is the opposite of the jazz-myth cliché: the misunderstood genius too pure to self-assess. He’s staking out a work ethic and a philosophy of survival at once. “Whatever I do, I attempt to do it fully” reads like a craft credo, but also like a quiet rebuke to a scene that often romanticizes spontaneity as an excuse for sloppiness. The key is the parenthetical humility - “don’t always succeed” - which keeps the statement from turning into swagger. He’s not claiming perfection; he’s claiming seriousness.

Then he pivots to a more loaded terrain: value. In a music economy that routinely underpays innovators and retroactively canonizes them once the rent is overdue, “There are musicians who do not know their worth” lands as both lament and warning. Dixon frames self-knowledge as a form of protection. If “worth” is allowed to “elude” you, the world will gladly help it disappear: bad contracts, shallow criticism, the quiet erosion of confidence. Saying “I know my worth” isn’t vanity; it’s labor politics expressed as personal dignity.

The final line complicates it: “You try not to dwell in the past.” That’s the tension of an elder artist who has receipts. Recognition, under-recognition, battles fought - all of it sits behind the sentence. He’s asserting a present-tense identity while admitting how easy it is to get trapped in the scoreboard of who listened, who paid, who understood. The subtext is discipline: work fully, value yourself clearly, then keep moving anyway.