A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear can hear that. Music is always changing. It changes because of the times and the technology that's available, the material that things are made of, like plastic cars instead of steel. So when you hear an accident today it sounds different, not all the metal colliding like it was in the forties and fifties. Musicians pick up sounds and incorporate that into their playing, so the music that they make will be different.

Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.

I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.

You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself

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

The way you change and help music is by tryin' to invent new ways to play