There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.

I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.

I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.

Of the One O'Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: "I wish it were mine".

The word [jazz] never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the 1920s I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing 'Negro music'. But it's too late for that now.

Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.

If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original. ... I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. ... I don't need time, I need a deadline. ...There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. ... Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.