Louis Armstrong Quotes

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

What we play is life.

I do believe that my whole success goes back to that time I was arrested as a wayward boy at the age of thirteen. Because then I had to quit running around and began to learn something. Most of all, I began to learn music.

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

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

I never want to be anything more than I am; what I don’t have, I don’t need.

You blows who you is.

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.

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

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.

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

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.

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.

I had a long time admiration for the Jewish people. Especially with their long time of courage, taking so much abuse for so long. I was only seven years old, but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for.

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

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

The best I can do is stay happy.