Les Paul

My chops were not as fast… [but] I just learned more on what was in my mind than what was in my chops. I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it’s the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with twenty notes.

Early on, I figured out that when the top of a guitar is vibrating and a string is vibrating, you’ve got a conflict. One of them has got to stop, and it can’t be the string, because that’s making the sound. So in 1934, I asked the Larson Brothers—Chicago instrument makers—to build me a guitar with a half-inch-thick maple top and no f-holes. They thought I was crazy.

It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.

You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be playing.

Every setback might be the very thing that makes you carry on and fight all the harder and become much better.

The audience, they’re not professionals. They just love music. It isn’t necessary to play over their heads to be admired.

At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.

If a jazz player is really playing, the classical player will have to respect him.

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.

Talk of God is most often in church. Is there a God outside of church? I hope so. But how should I know? How does anybody know?

Man, you tell a story.

Jazz improvisation is the art of drawing without an eraser.

If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.

If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal.

I’m a fan first. I believed Duke Ellington when he said there’s no bad music, just some of it is presented badly. As a kid, hanging around Church Street, the presentation of music was so powerful, I couldn’t help but jump for joy. I had discovered art, or truth, or whatever you want to call it; I had seen a light I’d follow forever.

Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it’s in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance.

The trio is the biggest sound you can have with the smallest unit.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel… and that’s what I’ve been doing all my life.

Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.