So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.

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.

We create our own enemies

Many a friendship-long loyal and self-sacrificing-rested at first upon no thicker a foundation than a kind word.

I have to do a better job of minimizing the damage in that inning and getting us back in there with the lead still.

Interrogate yours hidden assumptions

Of one thing alone I am very sure: it is a law of our nature that the memory of longing should survive the more fugitive memory of fulfillment.

Never judge a cover by its book.

Furniture that is too obviously designed is very interesting, but too often belongs only in museums.

I didn't lose my virginity until I was twenty-six. Nineteen vaginally, but twenty-six what my boyfriend calls "the real way".

He deserves nothing. Nothing but our scorn. (Father) Then I am rich indeed from the abundance of that which you’ve shown me. (Acheron)

What use having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?