An audience is in many respects no more than a mob under loose control.
Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.
The good old days are neither better nor worse than the ones we're living through right now.
You have no idea of the women I didn't marry.
The distance between me and Benny [Goodman], was that I was trying to play a musical thing, and Benny was trying to swing. Benny had great fingers; I'd never deny that. But listen to our two versions of 'Star Dust.' I was playing; he was swinging.
You run into a party and [a] woman comes up to you. She's the most beautiful creature you ever saw - Ava Gardner - and says, "I like you and why don't we get together?" What are you going to say, "No"? You'd have to be an idiot. She was an incredible creature.