The music speaks for itself!

Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.

You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played

If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.

Food makes my mind sluggish.

Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.

Some day I'm gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up.