Humility is a very important trait in a critic.

Jazz is for joy. It's for euphoria, it's for emotion, and anguish, and excitement, and all of the joys that great art can produce, and if it loses that, then it's lost everything.

You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks.

I hate the idea of turning jazz into homework assignments. I would never have a quiz saying, "Who's the clarinetist on the Hot Five?" I don't care. If you like the clarinetist, you'll know who it is.

Bing Crosby said that Armstrong is "the beginning and the end of music in America," and he wasn't far wrong.

People should not feel intimidated by received wisdom. You have to discover it yourself. If I tell you that Armstrong is great, it's meaningless; you have to hear it.

If you're genuinely candid and expressive then you're never wrong, even when you are wrong.

It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed.

Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.

The point of living and of being an optimist is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.

Single-minded concentration in the direction of your dreams intensifies your desires and increases your self-confidence.

You can put people's feet to the fire a bit just by reminding them that we're constantly creating our own history.

There is such a thing as the courage in remaining baffled.

No matter what happens in the future, no matter where our paths take us, this moment will be ours.

Regret, is usually a waste of time. As is gloating

If you don't find true balance, anyone can deceive you.

Mothers are the only race of people that speak the same tongue. A mother in Manchuria could converse with a mother in Nebraska and never miss a word.