Tony Bennett

To work is to feel alive.

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.

One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out.

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

Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.

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

I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

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

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

I have been doing music all my life so everyday when I get up I expect music will be part of it.

I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.

I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

Ah music… a magic beyond all we do here!

That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.

A guitar is something you can hold and love and it’s never going to bug you. But here’s the secret about the guitar – it’s defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.

There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.