Frank Sinatra

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

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.

I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

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

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

I felt a responsibility to present a viable alternative to the popular electric sound.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands …If they act too hip, you know they can’t play shit.

What’s tied Jazz together is its foundation in the Blues, a reliance on group interplay and the unique phenomenon of spontaneous improvisation.

Your humanity is your instrument.

Have you ever wondered why young people take to music like fish to water? Maybe it’s because music is fun, plain and simple.

The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn’t be able to do that.

I remember going to sleep many nights with a Gibson catalog, dreaming about getting a Les Paul. I finally did, with a loan from my Dad. It’s a really heavy instrument. But it plays like butter. I met Les backstage at a show once. Jeff Beck made me play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ for Les, which was a little embarrassing. He changed history, big-time.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world’s great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province… Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated.

If my own work had more importance than any others, it’s because the piano is the key instrument in music.

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you, if you