George Bernard Shaw

I was a freethinker before I knew how to think.

Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does.

Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.

As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it.

Jimmy (Wakely) told me, ‘I don’t want you to sound so much like Dinah Washington.’ So, I thought, ‘How can I get around this?’ And one of the people I really dug was Patti Page. So I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to sound like her.’ I actually did with a couple curly-cues thrown in for effect, but, that’s how I started getting away from the predominant Dinah influence, and getting my own style together.

I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world.

In Kansas City joints ran 9pm-5am. Pay was a $1.25 a night but somebody special like Count Basie could command $1.50.

I was not prepared to play the role of singer in the camp of the warriors

Music was our wife and we loved her. We stayed with her, clothed her and put diamond rings on her hands.

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

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren’t any.

Music is an addiction.

Art [Blakey] would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

A Les Paul, which is kind of a sissy guitar compared to a Strat anyway. The Les Paul is heavier, but because of that bulk you can do bends on it more easily. Also, the Les Paul’s lack of a vibrato arm means you’re not wrestling against the spring-loaded bridge all the time. The Strat is the ultimate because it’s like having a miniature pedal steel within it. Once you get familiar with it where the bends are and where they meld down into a fourth or whatever, you can do all kinds of pedal-steel-like things, which I think are cool..

You can have tone and technique but without originality you ain’t really nowhere. Gotta be original.

Living is easy with eyes closed.

People who are meant to be drawn to your music will find you.