My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.

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.

History is not a web woven with innocent hands. Among all the causes which degrade and demoralize men, power is the most constant and most active.

Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.

I take things too seriously.

Whatever I have not yet learned to tolerate in myself inevitably will appear in my children. In this way, they, like Julia, guide me to a new level of self-awareness and everyone benefits.

Minds, like parachutes, function better when open, but, like fists, they strike harder when closed.

I've been lucky to have survived balloon trips, boating trips, you know, a lot of rather foolish things in my life, so I was definitely born under a lucky star.

For I have not seen another shrine blissful like my own body.

Now that I have created moe, men of the world will never know peace as they struggle with the pitfalls of 3D.

Obscurity is a bigger problem for authors than piracy.

Nobody in pulpit or pew needs a revival more than a bitter-spirited fundamentalist with his dispensations right and his disposition wrong.