I don't think I will ever do any tours again in the United States. I rather think that that's over with.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I made it easier for many artists to play in certain areas.

My function at Verve was that of a genuine producer in artists and repertoire.

I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.

The public, hearing pop music, is, without knowing it, also soaking up jazz.

I'm talking as a professional impresario. I'm not judging anybody at all.

Ella can work nightclubs that Duke might not be able to work, because of having the big band. Where they go now is strictly a matter of their own names and talents.

When I was doing jazz concerts in America, I would use the biggest names I could find.

Sponsors and networks will really go all out and simply evaluate people on the basis of talent.

Ellington is a writer and arranger, as well as a musician and leader. He does movie sound tracks.

Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

The history of all big jazz bands shows was, first they played for dancing, and then they played for singing.

I find myself more at peace when I live in Europe.

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something tremendously special. But I am a jazz fan.

I still continue to do at least four concert tours a year, and in many cases, as many as six.

To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.

There are very few groups that really stay together. The leaders of groups make enough money to be able to afford to work a maximum of 35-40 weeks a year.

I'm concerned with trend. I don't know where jazz fans will come from 20 years from now.

The record companies are interested in the kind of sales they can get from the rock groups.

Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn't take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren't interested in it.

I don't think I will ever do any tours again in the United States. I rather think that that's over with.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

The economic picture in the States today doesn't allow for jazz concerts in a tour fashion. People now are too used to the Festival, which gives them more names for the same price.

As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

You will always find a few people in any area that would like things done completely their way.

In 1958, I decided that I was going to live in Europe permanently. So in 1959 I moved to Lugano, Switzerland.

If you look at my audiences, even in Europe, they're hardly teenagers.

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

There are many artists that I present that I admit I like less than I do others. But I think that they warrant being presented by my own, personal standards.

Amsterdam must have more than a million people. But the only area where jazz is really profitable and successful in an economic sense is in Japan. That's because they haven't been exposed enough.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

More than 65,000 horses were slaughtered in the United States in 2004, a 50 percent increase since 2002.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

The United States is our most important ally. They helped us many times. Without the United States, the unification or German democratisation after the Nazi period would have been much more complicated, or almost impossible.

What the F.D.I.C. does is to put the full faith and credit of the United States government behind every savings account in the nation, up to a limit that has changed over the years and stands now at $100,000.

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon.

The United States cannot feed every person, lift every person out of poverty, cure every disease, or stop every conflict. But our power and status have conferred upon us a tremendous responsibility to humanity.

Now, the entire world community recognizes Georgia. We are members of the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Everything is being prepared so that we will soon enter the European Union.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I have to say that it's very few countries that are willing to look back at its past and apologize for its act, or make amends for its act, as the United States had one.

But there are 90 million gun owners in the United States. Only 3.5 million want the insurance and magazines and the various things you get for joining the NRA.

They're not shooting me for deserting the United Stated Army - thousands of guys have done that. They're shooting me for bread I stole when I was 12 years old.

China's idea of fair trade is government subsidies of its textile and apparel exports to the United States, currency manipulation, and forgiveness of loans by its government banks.