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

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.

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

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

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know.

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.