“Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.”

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.

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.

It is always hard when reality intrudes on belief.

A humorist tells himself every morning, “I hope it’s going to be a rough day.” When things are going well, it’s much harder to make the right jokes.

So rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.

I like pubs too, but it’s hard for me to go and get proper bladdered in the way I used to.

It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.

It’s hard not to be excited when you’re going to find a way to land on the moon.

I have no problem with the people who work hard to get success. But I think people are very jealous about success.

Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.