"We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself."

“Making money ain't nothing exciting to me. ... You might be able to buy a little better booze than some wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat, and when you die you're just as graveyard dead as he is.”

“Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.”

“The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.”

“If you still have to ask, shame on you”

“Louis Armstrong Quotes”

“The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.”