Louis Armstrong quotes:

As many bands as you heard [in New Orleans], that's how many bands you heard playing right. I thought I was in Heaven playing second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band -- and they had some funeral marches that would just touch your heart, they were so beautiful.

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

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

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans. When that's where you left your heart. The moonlight on the bayou a creole tune that fills the air. I dream about magnolias in bloom and I'm wishin' I was there.

If you have to ask what jazz is you will never know." Louis Armstrong

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

Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby - love. That's the secret.

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.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.

I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don't treat me right - shame on you.

As a youngster in the little orphanage home in New Orleans, I was the bugler of the institution. When I got to be around 13 or 14 years old, they took me off the bugle and put me in the little brass band.

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.

There is no such thing as 'on the way out' as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you're in the business because you're breathing.

I'm a spade, you're an ofay. Let's play.

The best I can do is stay happy.

Red beans and ricely yours.

What we play is life.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Oh, yeah....

Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops... I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.

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.

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

It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend.

If you still have to ask, shame on you

You blows who you is.

[Bebop is] Chinese music.

A lot of the musicians asked me if when I hit my high-Cs on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. Some [thought] I had invented some kind of gadget so I could play high register. They weren't satisfied until they handed me a trumpet that they had with them and had me swing it. Then they cheered.

Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him.

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

All them weird chords which don't mean a thing...you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to

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.

Give me a kiss to build a dream on And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss Sweetheart, I ask no more than this A kiss to build a dream on.

I don't get involved in politics. I just blow my horn.

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

I don't need words. It's all in the phrasing.

I had a chance to play with the best musicians that were coming through because I was pretty good myself or else they wouldn't have tolerated with me.

I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world

I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me!

If it hadn't been for Jazz, there wouldn't be no rock and roll.

If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.

If you don't understand it, don't mess with it.

I'll bet right now most of the youngsters and hot club fans who hear the name Storyville hasn't the least idea that it consisted of some of the biggest prostitutes in the world ... Standing in their doorways nightly in their fine and beautiful negligees -- faintly calling to the boys as they passed their cribs.

It ain't whatcha say, it's the way howcha say it.

It makes you feel good, man, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you're with another tea smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship.

It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country.

I've Got the World on a String,

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

Jazz is what I play for a living.

Love is talkative passion.

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

Musicians in my day had nicknames. My name was "Satchel Mouth," like a doctor's satchel. When I went to England this fellow was strictly English, and he was editor of the newspaper there. He shook my hand after I got off the train and said, "Hello, Satchmo." So right away my trombone player said, "Mmm, the man thinks you have mo' mouth than Satchel Mouth." So I was stuck with it, and it turned out all right.

My life has always been my music, it's always come first, but the music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people.

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

Never play a thing the same way twice.

Never play anything the same way twice.

Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of like half-fast.

Some of you young folks been saying to me, 'Hey Pops, what you mean what a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? They ain't so wonderful either.' But how about listening to old Pops for a minute. It seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad, but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That's the secret. Yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And man, this world would be a gasser.

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.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people goin' by I see friends shaking hands saying, "How do you do" They're really saying "I love you." I hear babies cry, I watch then grow They'll learn much more than I'll ever know; And I think to myself, What a wonderful world; Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world. Oh yeah!

The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!

There are Two Secrets to Success: 1. Don't tell ANYONE Everything you know 2.If you have to ask what Jazz is, you'll never know.

There's a thing I've dreamed of all my life, and I'll be damned if it don't look like it's about to come true-to be King of the Zulu's parade. After that, I'll be ready to die.

There's only two ways to sum up music; either it's good or it's bad. If it's good you don't mess about it, you just enjoy it.

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

Unless you know what it is I ain't never going to be able to explain it to you.

We don't play slow and we don't play fast, we play half fast

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.

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.

When you're dead, you're done.

When you're with another tea smoker it makes you feel a special kinship,

White folks still in the lead.

You can't take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I've been playing 50 years, and that's what I've been doing in order to keep in that groove there.

You either have it or you don't. You play your horn just like you sing a song or a hymn. If it's in your heart, you express yourself in the tune.

You got to love to be able to play

You see, pops, that's the kind of talk that's ruining the music. Everyone's trying to do something new, no one trying to learn the fundamentals first. All them young cats playing their wierd chords. And what happens? No one's working.

You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means.

You've got to be good or as bad as the devil.

Don't do nothing halfway, else you find yourself dropping more than can be picked up.

At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the "mis-de" and you just got meaner and meaner..