What opera isn't violent? Two things happen, violence and love. And other than that, name something else. You can't

People sometimes forget that jazz was built not only in the minds of the great ones but on the backs of the ordinary ones — ordinary musicians.

And then there's my Grandson: He's certainly got the music together, there's just no question about it.

Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

Pass that thing, slightly, lightly and politely.

Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any

You don't think it was because a white man wrote it, a black man wrote it, a green man wrote it. What-doesn't make a difference!

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don't do that on stage

We usually never got out of there before four or five o'clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

A phoenix ain't nuthin' but a burd.

And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!

The most eloquent prayer is often prayed through hands that heal and bless.

Desire grows by what it feeds on.

In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid.

The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love of God.

We have an authorization to use military force against terrorists. We passed it after 9/11.

Poetry is the memory of language

Secrets are inherently selfish. The longer you keep them, the harder it is to put yourself in other people's shoes about them and the more irrational your thinking surrounding it becomes.

I like New York because you're kind of forced to smell everybody else's funk. So it keeps you biologically attached to the world around you.

The makers of '21 and Over' have been screening it, and I'm getting a lot of comparisons to a young Vince Vaughn.