“He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.”

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.

Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.

You don’t have to be stupid to be a Christian, but it probably helps.

PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.

Forgetfulness – a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.

The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.

Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.

From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That’s what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

I don’t have any issues with my age.

I don’t want to be made to look like I’m 25. I’m 39. I don’t have any issues with my age.

I’ve been in the public eye for about 15 or 16 years and I’m very aware that fame is not a given. I have to maintain it. It’s not just something that will always be there.

Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.

We all have souls of different ages.