Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it.

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

Playing "bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it.

Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.

A man is a god in ruins.

Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

A problem is your chance to do your best.

There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.

Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

It's like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something.

People do not retire. They are retired by others.

Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

A problem is a chance for your to do your best.

A goal is a dream with a finish line.

There are simply two kinds of music good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good its successful if it doesnt it has failed.

By & large Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillacs, and beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.

San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world - one of the really urbane communities in the United States - one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world.

Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.

For me, being in front of the camera and training go hand in hand.