I played the trumpet a bit like a porker, I think.

There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly.

The three great moments of my life had to be the concerts of Ellington in 1938, Dizzy in '48, and Ella in '52.

I played the trumpet a bit like a porker, I think.

The problem is the following, black music is increasing encumbered by white elements, often pleasant but always superfluous, easily and advantageously replaced with black elements.

Of course, it's fun to play with Blacks.

One ends up relying on pure musical inspiration, and failing that, the music won't lead to anything good, or it will alienate all but the most die-hard fans.

Without jazz, life would be a mistake.

I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.

A man who loves himself takes the first step towards real love.

I don't eat animals. I rescue strays and take injured pigeons to the wildlife rehab. I carry spiders and wasps outside in a cup covered with a 3x5 card. It would only follow that I'd take pause when contemplating the abrupt and apparently brutal ending of a tiny human being's life, or even a potential human being's life.

I would like to say I've achieved goals, but really, modeling is all luck. You're not really achieving anything. The least hardworking person with a special face can be huge and have a whole world of success.

The snow leopard is absolutely magnificent. It represents really what endangered species are all about.

I was a trial lawyer when I was elected to Congress.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

The proof of a man is the danger test, It shows him up at his worst, or his best.

If your mentors only tell you that you are awesome, it's time to find other mentors.

I love going to other people's weddings, but I have never desired a big white wedding for myself, and it has never been put on me as a pressure, an expectation.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They'll tell you.

Yu Na Kim, Mao Asada, Carolina Kostner - all these girls can do triple-triples in their sleep, and they have the skating skills and the spins and the rest of the technical jumps. So I have to have that as well if I want to be able to call myself 'competitive' against them. And when I say 'competitive,' I mean I want to win.

You never discount a demagogue.

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

I didn't have any interest in traditional art.

I'm in the wrong racket if I didn't want a public life.

People of color grow up steeped in 'white' culture. The reverse is not true. And, no, listening to hip-hop on the way to work does not count as immersion.

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.

The key of 'The Earth from Above,' and of 'Home' is to show the beauty of the planet, and thereby to promote love for it.

Crabbed and obscure definitions are of no use beyond a narrow circle of students, of whom probably every one has a pet one of his own.

I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother's womb is a person at the moment of conception.

Anti-submarine warfare is the military version of chess. You must work out what the enemy is going to do before they even think of it.

I am open to love in all forms.

Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery, where from time to time he goes to pray.