“What is my definition of jazz? 'Safe sex of the highest order.”

“And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? "Safe sex of the highest order.”

“Comedians and jazz musicians have been more comforting and enlightening to me than preachers or politicians or philosophers or poets or painters or novelists of my time. Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz.”

“I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz.”

“The highest possible form of treason is to say that Americans aren’t loved wherever they go, whatever they do.”

“The painter's face curdled with scorn "You think I'm proud of this daub?" he said. "You think this is my idea of what life looks like?""What's your idea of what life looks like?" said the orderly. The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. "There's a good picture of it," he said. "Frame that, and you'll have a picture a damn sight more honest than this one.”

“Life, by definition, is never still. Where is it going? From birth to death, with no stops on the way.”