All dope can do for you is kill you... the long hard way. And it can kill the people you love right along with you.

God bless the child that's got his own.

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.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.