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

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.

I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.

Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.

I'll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I'd never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I'd never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn't much like it at first.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.