It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I was always willing to say, "Let's see what happens," when something came up that looked like it might help me get a little closer to where I wanted to be . . .

Keep on listening & tapping your feet.

I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

Dawn and dusk are mutual friends of the sun

We both loved her. And you couldn't control who you loved, even if you wanted to.

It's time to question a job or career move when it seems like most energy is devoted to making things appear other than what they really are.

The hypochondriac disease consists in indigestion and consequent flatulency, with anxiety or want of pleasurable sensation.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

Music's supposed to come from the heart. I felt like that if it ever got mechanical, I was going to back away from it.

One of my daughters was a bit flat-chested, so she had implants and she's got a lovely pair now. I see nothing wrong with it.

If I could do just one thing to change the world, I'd make everyone Thom Yorke, and this would be paradise.

The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into.

I'm not going to doubt my life.