I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, 'Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.'

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.

If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I was always willing to say, "Let's see what happens," when something came up that looked like it might help me get a little closer to where I wanted to be . . .

Keep on listening & tapping your feet.

I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.

... We are in a system that doesn't give a rap about sacredness.

Mississippi Mermaid was a very special experience because we only had the dialogues for the scenes we were shooting the night before.

I don't want to be a great chief executive without being a great mum and a great wife.

The true hero fights and dies in the name of his destiny, and not in the name of a belief.

The people in Louisiana must know that all across our country there's a lot of prayer - prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down. And I'm one of them.

Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.

But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor is necessary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art.

My one fear is failure and that's one fear I have to face all the time. Yes, it's uncomfortable to be scared but I'm finally comfortable being uncomfortable.

What pretty bright trout there are in this bold rock creek! It would full be called a river in England, and so it is!