“When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. ...” — Steve Lacy Quote

“When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.”

“We played for peanuts. But we did what we wanted to do, we heard what we wanted to hear, we performed what we wanted to perform, we learned what we wanted to learn.”

“I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music.”

“I hope that I never have to work in a place that sells large quantities of jeans ever again. Jeans are rough! It used to kill my hands. I know that sounds prissy - I'm not prissy at all. But it did; it killed my hands. It was awful.”

“Most of us have days or weeks or months so awful, we wish we'd never been born.”

“I've played an awful lot of repressed people.”