Fats Waller

If you’ve got to take it. Take it easy. Never hurry to a date. Eat your supper; let ’em wait.

Be sure it’s true when you say I love you. It’s a sin to tell a lie. Millions of heart have been broken. Just because these words were spoken.

If you don’t know what it is, don’t mess with it

A little bit independent in your walk. A little bit independent in your talk. There’s nothing like you in Paris or New York. You’re awfully easy on the eyes.

Whenever I’m with you alone. You weave a magic spell and though it be a danger zone. I only know that you’re swell.

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

There’s a spiritual satisfaction that one gets from listening and playing good Jazz.

Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

On my album Here, that’s the first time that I’ve really understood how I could put all the things that were happening in the world and in my life and in our lives as just human beings into one body that was just so powerful and really had a perspective. That was an opening for me and I think that naturally, there is just so much to talk about. I don’t see me getting quiet anytime soon.

I’m… a rather simple person with a limited talent and perhaps a limited perspective.

Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they’re trying to say with jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play. If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside… I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do.

Music is your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

Applause felt like approval and it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

There’s only one thing that everyone in this world has in common: whether you want to love somebody and you want to be loved in return.

What I learned the most from Prince was putting art first, being creatively ambitious, and putting creativity at the forefront of what I do.

Jazz is about being in the moment.