I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

Everybody cryin' mercy / When they don't know the meaning of the word.

The things that really matter don't mix with idle chatter.

Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.

I been getting good crowds. It only took 50 years.

I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

I never sit down and write. I just sorta let things form in my brain.

I was considered as a jazz man rather than as a blues player. There were no blues players-you played one sort of jazz of another sort of jazz.

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.

Love your life, poor as it is.

I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.

I never got into debt because my parents had drummed into me at a young age: if you can't afford it, you can't have it.

I don't accept the idea that literature can be just entertainment and that there is no consequences of literature in the real world.

people like to keep their little secrets to themselves. It's like growing mushrooms in the cellar and running down to take a look at them now and then.

You might have lost some major battles, but you survived and you're still here.

I love Motown, that whole era. Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson. I just put on Pandora, and put it on Motown, and it makes me smile; makes me smile so much.

We make the best phone, we don't make the most phones.