“Music is the universal language. It brings people closer together.”

You take romance – I’ll take Jell-O.

She is amazingly creative, bringing so much more to a song than just a singer. She is a first-class musician and the most gracious person in the world.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.

Sometimes when we’re flying or in the hotel, I might run over songs, or in the bathroom.

Every time I look down on this timeless town, whether blue or gray be her skies, whether loud be her cheers, or whether soft be her tears, more and more do I realize that. I love Paris.

Whatever she does to my songs, she always makes them sound better.

I think I do better when I sing.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

Coming through the years, and finding that I not only have just the fans of my day, but the young ones of today – that’s what it means, it means it was worth all of it.

Everybody wants to know about my style and how it came about. It’s no big secret. It’s the way I feel.

When we were at the Apollo, Holiday was a block away. I asked her for her autograph.

She has been more famous, over a longer time span, than any other female singer.

I’ve had some wonderful love affairs and some that didn’t work out. I don’t want to dwell on that and I don’t want to put people down, but I think all the fabulous places I’ve been, the wonderful things that have happened for me, the great people I’ve met – that ought to make a story.

When I’m on stage I feel at home

Ella knows her way around her voice as very few people today. But there are times when she seems to be unaware there are things the human voice just doesn’t do. She does them.

What everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved.

My mom was an executive at AT&T, a global account lady. I have no idea what she did. I just know she was never home and speaks several languages.

I wanted Americans to understand that words matter—that the hateful language they heard coming from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it.

I’d come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

Let us eat, drink, and love for tomorrow we die, would be in fact the language of reason, the morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting shadow?

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

Don’t use language instrumentally.

The language of the mob was only the language of public opinion cleansed of hypocrisy and restraint.

Language is the house of Being.