I don't care what anyone does, as long as they go through the copyright office.

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

Everybody cryin' mercy / When they don't know the meaning of the word.

The things that really matter don't mix with idle chatter.

Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.

I been getting good crowds. It only took 50 years.

I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

I never sit down and write. I just sorta let things form in my brain.

We are but a bunch of neurons.

That's what we want to do here at Johnson Space Center. I think what we have always brought to NASA and brought to the country is trying to push the boundaries, trying to go to the next level.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

The body must be credited with an immense fund of know-how.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

Everybody that knows me knows I have a temper.

He who has lost his money-belt will go where you wish.

I always say if you've seen good acting on television, those actors are really good. Because there's just not enough time. You don't have any preparation.

The benefit of even limited monopolies is too doubtful, to be opposed to that of their general suppression.

School is the path, not the point.