Ella Fitzgerald

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

It isn’t where you came from, its where you’re going that counts.

Forgive me if I don’t have the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.

Let me whisper it. Let me sigh it. Let me sing it, my dear or I will cry it.

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.

There are notes between notes, you know.

Music should always be an adventure.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.

For most dates I was paid the sum of $1 per hr and they always tipped me at the end of the night.

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

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

They’re not particular whether you’re playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance.

I don’t do something because I think it’ll sell 30 million albums. I couldn’t care less if it sells just one.

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy and Bird.

Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life.