“New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size.”

I can only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.

Singing songs like ‘The Man I Love’ or ‘Porgy’ is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck.

God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.

If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.

I joined Count Basie’s band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn’t see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.

In this country kings or dukes don’t amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres.

Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows.

Them that’s got shall get, Them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible says, And it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that’s got his own.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

It’s a weird feeling when people are defining you, and you haven’t even defined yourself.

People are weird. When we find someone with weirdness that is compatible with ours, we team up and call it love.

School’s a weird thing. I’m not sure it works.

I was always fascinated by people who are considered completely normal, because I find them the weirdest of all.

Everywhere I go, somebody is staring at me, I don’t know if people are staring because they recognize me or because they think I’m a weirdo.

It’s weird not to be weird.

I think everybody’s weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.

Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird.