Great Throughts Treasury

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues."

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best. "

"Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves."

"A goal is a dream with a finish line."

"By and large, Jazz has always been like the kind of man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with."

"Grey skies are just clouds passing over."

"I don’t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again."

"I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right."

"I’m sure critics have their purpose, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did."

"I don't need time, I need a deadline."

"If it sounds good, it IS good."

"It doesn't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing"

"It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line."

"Love is supreme and unconditional. Like is nice, but limited."

"Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one."

"Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it."

"Music is the tonal reflection of beauty."

"Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom… In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country."

"People do not retire. They are retired by others."

"New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillac's, and the beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses."

"There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!"

"You can’t write music right unless you know how the man that’ll play it plays poker."

"There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2 - Never forget rule number 1."

"There is no art without intention."

"You’ve got to find some way of saying it without saying it."

"What is music to you? What would you be without music? Music is everything. Nature is music (cicadas in the tropical night). The sea is music, the wind is music. The rain drumming on the roof and the storm raging in the sky are music. Music is the oldest entity. The scope of music is immense and infinite. It is the ‘esperanto’ of the world."