Bing Crosby

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

Talent is only the starting point.

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the night, or you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them…

The only thing better than singing is more singing.

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

They said Bird played bebop, but Bird could still swing. I’ve heard a lot of guys play bebop, but they wasn’t swinging.

All this is saying is, OK I see now, the ‘hood does not quite want Shirley Bassey yet, so let me still give them this. Crack Music was made after Diamonds. After black people were like, ‘I don’t know about this one.’ It was like me reaching too high for the cookie jar.

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it… for two days, the critics know it… three days, the public knows it.

If I could read it, I could play it.

It’s not all smoke and mirrors. Some of it comes from books.

A great teacher stimulates his student’s creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.

I’m a musician at heart, I know I’m not really a singer. I couldn’t compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

[on B.B. King] He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced, and the most humble and genuine man you would ever wish to meet. In terms of scale or stature, I believe that if Robert Johnson was reincarnated, he is probably B.B. King.

However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.

Nobody has ever been able to define Jazz satisfactorily. This is probably because anyone who was capable of doing so never really wanted to, knowing how much you would have to leave out of the definition.