American Quotes

For all of my fortune, there are many with misfortune that need a hand.

Certainly situation comedy is harder than people who are good at it make it look, but it's fun to do something different.

The universe is popping all over the place.

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it's beautiful, not necessarily commercial.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

I came from an era when we didn't use electronic instruments. The bass wasn't even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.

I appreciate men like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins very much.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

I was 37 when my father died-and I no longer had any freedom of choice over what I would do with the rest of my life.

I vehemently deny that I was born a cynic and a pessimist.

I take pride in the creation of my wealth, in its existence and in the uses to which it has been and is being put.

I have never been given to envy - save for the envy I feel toward those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily.

I have always enjoyed the company of women and have formed deep and long-lasting friendships with many of them.

I have absolutely no intention of marrying Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

I can afford to say what I wish.

I am neither a homosexual nor a eunuch, nor have I ever taken any vows of chastity.

I am - and have always been - a Methodist.

How does one measure the success of a museum?

Governments, of course, can - and do - soak the rich.

Five wives can't all be wrong.

During the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis and I formed what grew to be a close friendship and association in several business ventures.

Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock.