Duke Ellington

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it.

There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.

It's good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamelessly foolishly.

I never officially came out in any kind of really public way. I just always lived very simply and openly, but the press has never made a big fuss about me or said anything to me.

For us tall people, the whole key is that your hips and your knees should form a right angle when you sit down. That's where backs and hips get to be problems for big guys.