Ahmad Jamal

Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.

I would like to be a scholar in whatever I do, a scholar is never finished, he is always seeking and I am always seeking.

You’ve got a big, big problem if you get caught up in what people say. If you’re gonna live for what people say, you might as well lay down and forget it. Because it doesn’t work that way.

You don’t create things, you discover things.

The quickest way to become troubled is to be concerned with what people say about your work.

Many fail to realize this great recording industry was built by so-called jazz artists. And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t walk run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but by all means keep moving.

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it.

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars Englandhe should have said Britain, of coursealways wins one battlethe last.

There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

Logic is like the sword