Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.

If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing.

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.

I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.