The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!

Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.

Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.

Don't do nothing halfway, else you find yourself dropping more than can be picked up.

What we play is life.

I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don't treat me right - shame on you.

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.

Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Oh, yeah.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.

You know what they say about hope, it breeds eternal misery

Bravery comes along as a gradual accumulation of discipline

Speaking calls for risk, speaking calls for a sense of what one has to lose. Not just what one has to gain.

Even in my own time and in my own life, I have witnessed a revolution.

Some men give as little light in the world as a farthing tallow candle, and when they expire, leave as bad an odor behind them.

I am comfortable that the principles that I articulated were never compromised.

Tonight the Republican presidential candidates had a big debate, 10 candidates. The last time that many rich white guys got together, I think Exxon merged with Mobil.

Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him.

I'll take 14 out of 15 any day of the week, any week of the month, any month of the year, any year of the century. I don't know what comes after century.

No, I'm not clever. I've always cared more for people than for ideas.