I used to do a lot of apologizing for what the State Department had done.

I was blessed that I got married early and had a good wife. That sort of kept me straight. Probably I would have been like Charlie Parker, you know, involved in drugs or alcohol or something like that if I hadn't had this stability.

Learn to play the piano, man, and then you can figure out crazy solos of your own.

As a musician you have to keep one foot back in the past and have one foot forward into the future.

Many critics always saw and heard that my style comes from Roy Eldridge, which is true. But for many things, not only how to play the trumpet but the way to choose the notes, how to play them and how to phrase all of them, I took that from Sweets [Edison]. He really brought something new to the trumpet.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your magnificent indifference.

There have been two great revelations in my life: The first was bepop, the second was homeopathy.