If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it... If you're going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you'll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can't define it beyond that.

It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.