I can't understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out & look at it?

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.

Listening to Benny [Goodman] talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.

Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.

If I could have done anything more, it would have been less

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

It ["Begin the Beguine"] became such a hit that it superseded anything that any band had ever had. It was the first time that a so-called swing band played something melodic and still gave it a beat.