Frank Sinatra

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe I’m honest.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass.

For years the trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We starved.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

It’s always Jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of clothes she’s the same old broad.

Give it a good go, try to have fun at it, try to pass on some good notes and some good sounds to your fans, and I don’t think you will have wasted your time.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing. I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea. I have no one style. I play as I feel.

There’s so many ways you can hit one note.

I always liked the steel guitar. I also love the guys that play the bottleneck. But I could never do it; I never made it do what I want. So every time I would pick up the guitar, I’d shake my hand and trill it a bit. For some strange reason my ears would say to me that sounds similar to what those guys were doing. I can’t pick up the guitar now without doing it. So that’s how I got into making my sound. It was nothing pretty. Just trying to please myself. I heard that sound.

I write songs about real things… The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

The Blues is never old.