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

Some kids in Italy call me ‘Mama Jazz; I thought that was so cute. As long as they don’t call me ‘Grandma Jazz.’

I know I’m no glamour girl, and it’s not easy for me to get up in front of a crowd of people. It used to bother me a lot, but now I’ve got it figured out that God gave me this talent to use, so I just stand there and sing.

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

Listen to her voice, don’t look at her.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

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.

Manipulated by fashion, self-serving art scholars and the vagaries of the auction block.

A majority of women seem to consider themselves sent into the world for the sole purpose of displaying dry goods, and it is only when acting the part of an animated milliner’s block that they feel they are performing their appropriate mission.

If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain.

Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable – as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.

One should, when overwhelmed by the shadow of a giant, move aside and see if the colossal shadow isn’t merely that of a pygmy blocking out the sun.

Stress is actually the number one thing that blocks people from their happiness and well-being and from getting what they want.

I’ve learned, That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

I’m not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.