If you don’t see the wonder in the most ordinary phenomenon, you’re not going to resonate very much.

'Swing' is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a 'swing band' in music.

If you wanna dance, a windshield wiper'll do it-all you need is a beat.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijiana, and will expire on cocaine.

You have no idea of the women I didn't marry.

An audience is in many respects no more than a mob under loose control.

The good old days are neither better nor worse than the ones we're living through right now.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

Somebody asked me once, 'Do you think that swing will ever come back?' And I said, 'Do you think the 1938 Ford will ever come back?'

An artist should write for himself & not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.

Life is a war. Guerrilla warfare, the strategy

Every man that treats a woman like a queen, truly deserves to be treated like a king in return.

My biggest success is getting over the things that have tried to destroy and take me out of this life. Those are my biggest successes. It has nothing to do with work.

The human race has been in a long struggle to eliminate murder. And we will succeed.

Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies. The gods on murtherers fix revengeful eyes.

We've never had a female President in this country, which I find stunning

My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.

The idea that America has cornered the market on anti-immigration is ridiculous. It's a global phenomenon.

I think I'm a soulful singer.

We were poor. we were so poor, in my neighborhood the rainbow was in black-and-white.