Louis Armstrong

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.

Making money ain't nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the 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.

Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians: they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five.

My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn.

I've Got the World on a String.

It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... we contributed Louis Armstrong

When I was young and very green, I worte that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it for you. I'll give you fifty dollars. I didn't know nothing about papers, and business, and I sold it outright.

Jazz is what I play for a living.

To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!

I don't let my mouth say nothin' my head can't stand.

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

Never play anything the same way twice.

There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.

Never play a thing the same way twice.

Music is either good or bad, and it's got to be learned. You got to have balance.

Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.

When the other kids started calling me nicknames, I knew everything was all right. I have a pretty big mouth, so they hit on that and began calling me Gatemouth or Satchelmouth, and that Satchelmouth has stuck to me all my life, except that now it's been made into 'Satchmo' - 'Satchmo' Armstrong.

I was determined to play my horn against all odds, and I had to sacrifice a whole lot of pleasure to do so.

When I go to the Gate, I'll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we'll play 'Sleepy Time Down South' and 'Hello, Dolly!.' Then he can blow a couple that he's been playing up there all the time.