“What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?”

There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.

On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.

There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!

Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine.

Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.

The artist must say it without saying it.

Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.

There is no art without intention.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.

I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!

Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line

There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.

There are two kinds of worries – those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.