Frank Sinatra

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.

I’m gonna live till I die.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy… all the things that humans have.

[on Django Reinhardt] This was a man who changed my musical life by giving me a whole new perspective on the guitar and, on an even more profound level, on my relationship with sound…During my formative years, as I listened to Django’s records, especially songs like ‘Nuages’ that I would play for the rest of my life, I studied his technique. Even more, I studied his gentleness. I love the human sound he gave his acoustic guitar.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

All that I’ve played, all that I’ve sung, I couldn’t have done any other way.

Never play anything the same way twice.

When rock music came in, I wasn’t bitter about it. I was puzzled.

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.

When you want ’em you can’t get ’em, when you’ve got ’em, you don’t want ’em.

Most of the stuff I learned to play, I learned in high school. I had a band in high school, a jazz-fusion thing, and I was the keyboard player. I was interested in how the instruments worked and the theory behind playing with them.

The true value of this music lies in an artist’s individual creativity and that unique process of expression which is Jazz.

I never heard of a Jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do… play for the walls?

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

They’re not particular about whether you’re playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.