“I’ll play it first and figure out what it’s called later.”

That’s the way women do. The frown. They want to give you the attitude to approach them back, by giving you a negative vibe.

Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!

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.

It’s your career, your face, your name. You have to be in control because if something gets messed up or something doesn’t look how you want it to, you’re the only one to blame.

People call me energy in a bottle.

I count the stars from whence we came. I name them all for you; my flame.

The phone company handles 84 billion calls a year-everything from kings, queens, and presidents to the scum of the earth.

One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

There are two ways of talking. One is the easy way, where you talk lightly, and the other one is the considered way. The considered way is what I have put my name to.

What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.