I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician.

It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?

Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.

See, if you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that - but he's got to think differently in order to do it. He's got to play above what he knows - far above it. I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

If you're going to drop behind, you have to keep it there.

There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.

Always look ahead, but never look back.