Tony Bennett

Just give a drum roll, announce my name and I come out and sing. I have a contract that says I’m a singer. So I sing.

If you follow your passions, you’ll never work a day in your life.

To work is to feel alive.

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

Every symphony, for example, is a sonata for orchestra; every string quartet is a sonata for four strings; every concerto a sonata for a solo instrument and orchestra.

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.

You can’t explain Jazz to anyone without losing the experience because it’s feeling, not words.

Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.

I’ve noticed that the more adventurous and in that mode that I am, it seems that the more the audience really likes it.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.

It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.

If it wasn’t for hustlers, gangsters and gamblers there’d be no Jazz. Wasn’t middle-class who said Let’s go hear Bird tonight.

If you want to be a musician, study your craft. Study music.

It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

I have younger friends who don’t work and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

You blows who you is.