“There are no wrong notes.”

Always listen for what you can leave out.

My father’s rich, my momma’s good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I’ve never suffered and don’t intend to suffer.

There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can’t be trusted.

I’m out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I’m still playing.

It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?

It takes a long time to sound like yourself.

I don’t pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is myself…and I’m too vain to play anything I think is bad.

Food makes my mind sluggish.

If you love them in the morning with their eyes full of crust; if you love them at night with their hair full of rollers, chances are, you’re in love.

I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.

Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.

With Fred McDowell, I just love the way he articulates the notes. I’m hardly unique in that, but there’s just something about that that I love.

Notes don’t make music until you learn to insert silence between them.

Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?

In the best possible scenario, whenever you get notes from people, they’re good notes, and they see things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise, and they make you a better writer.

If I have a song where I hit some really high notes, I want to try to bring in equivalently low notes somewhere in there.

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.