“I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way”

Sleep to Dream
Song lyrics, Tidal (1996)

The Well-Spoken Thesaurus (2011)

Compilation by the BBC 11 March, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4340205.stm

Quiet Strength (2000)

Song No Hole In My Head

An Open Letter To Miles Davis (1955)
Context: I think my own way. I don't think like you and my music isn't meant just for the patting of feet and going down backs. When and if I feel gay and carefree, I write or play that way. When I feel angry I write or play that way — or when I'm happy, or depressed, even.
Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions. If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music, and I would begin to worry about my writing if such a person began to really like it. My music is alive and it's about the living and the dead, about good and evil. It's angry, yet it's real because it knows it's angry.

On how he would like to be remembered (1994)
Context: Oh, I don't know — that's a hell of a question — I don't tend to look at my stuff that way. I just look at it a book at a time. Something like the Amber books are in a different class. I try not to anticipate. I don't know what I'll be writing a few years from now. I have some ideas — I have lots of different things I want to try. I almost don't really care what history thinks. I like the way I'm being treated right now.

Interview with Martin Bashir on BBC Panorama (20 November 1995)

Source: Twelve Sharp