“Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.”

Problems are chances for us to do our best.

I don’t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again.

Critics have their purposes, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.

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

Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.

I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.

Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.

New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.

Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

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.

We had no choice. Sadness was a dangerous as panthers and bears. the wilderness needs your whole attention.

It is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling – and indeed healthy – to ask why you have been given so much.

In the beginning there was faith – which is childish; trust – which is vain; and illusion – which is dangerous.

The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.

One thing I gained in my life is just the need for more Jesus in my life. You never come to a place in your walk with Jesus where you feel like you’ve had enough. That’s a dangerous feeling to have.

Delay always breeds danger.