The whole reason for Jazz at the Philharmonic was to take it to places where I could break down segregation.

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.

Amsterdam must have more than a million people. But the only area where jazz is really profitable and successful in an economic sense is in Japan. That's because they haven't been exposed enough.

Sponsors and networks will really go all out and simply evaluate people on the basis of talent.

Jazz is America's own. It is played and listened to by all peoples - in harmony together. Pigmentation differences have no place... as in genuine democracy, only performance counts.

If you don't get substantially what you want, be ready to walk. And don't look back.

There are very few groups that really stay together. The leaders of groups make enough money to be able to afford to work a maximum of 35-40 weeks a year.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn't take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren't interested in it.

The stories you believe to be true are the ones your life will become.

I like my coffee with cream and my literature with optimism.

The only antidote to the loneliness of the streets was the streets themselves.

In life and business, there are two cardinal sins. The first is to act precipitously without thought and the second is to not act at all.

and getting dressed we talk about what else there might be to do, but being together solves most of it, in fact, solves all of it

Success can come to a person who has failed, but it will never come to a person who quits

There is no kindness more cruel than the kindness which consigns another person to their sin.

Only in unawareness you are mortal. In awareness you are immortal.

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

I'm all about the fans.