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

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.

I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate that once we've defined something, we don't need to think about it anymore.

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.

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

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

You have no idea of the women I didn't marry.