If you don’t see the wonder in the most ordinary phenomenon, you’re not going to resonate very much.

I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.

The bandleader is a musician trying to sell a mass commodity; and in order to do so successfully he must accommodate himself to mass standards. Unless he can do this comfortably, sooner or later he is sunk.

People ask what those women saw in me. Let's face it, I wasn't a bad-looking stud. But that's not it. It's the music; it's standing up there under the lights. A lot of women just flip; looks have nothing to do with it. You call Mick Jagger good-looking?

I like the music. I love it & live it in fact. But for me the business part of music just plain stinks.

An audience is in many respects no more than a mob under loose control.

An artist should write for himself & not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.