Irving Berlin

Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.

Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’

You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

I think pop music is one of the few things in the 20th century that have made giant strides in reverse.

One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport.

Jazz music is the real deal.

Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

You never get it figured out. You just keep playing.

Music is the great arbiter of the world, the key to central harmony and a necessary requirement of human emotion.

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.

I worked until I could play and do changes at any tempo in any key and said ‘What else is there?’ Now I’m finding out.

People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.

When you sing, always tell the truth.

I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line.

Jazz without the Blues is like BBQ without the sauce.