Remember always that the composer's pen is still mightier than the bow of the violinist; in you lie all the possibilities of the creation of beauty.

Sincere composers believe in God.

I have always believed that 98% of a student's progress is due to his own efforts, and 2% to his teacher.

There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!

Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

I forsee a marked deterioration in American musicand a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue—or rather by vice—of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines

I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the country.