Louis Armstrong famous quotes

What we play is life.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #Inspirational Life #Live Life

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

#Inspiring #Music #Retirement

To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!
-- Louis Armstrong

#Jazz

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

#Memories #Important #Musician

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

#Marijuana #Dope #Stuff

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

#Funny #Music #Song

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

#Music #African American #Jazz

[Bebop is] Chinese music.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Chinese #Bebop #Jazz

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

#Mean #Jazz #Remember

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #Memories #Night

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Dream #Heart #Mean

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

#Music #Jazz

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Life #Practice #Two

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Blow #Two #Everyday

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

#Cat #People #Lines

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

#Music #Heart #Jazz

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Heart #Eye #New Orleans

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Cat #Sick #Littles

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Two #Way #Jazz

Never play a thing the same way twice.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #Play #Way

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

#Music #Blow #Soul

You blows who you is.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #Blow #Jazz

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

#Music #Needs

Never play anything the same way twice.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #Play #Way

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Baby #War #Mean

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

#Tea #Special #Feels

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Fashion #Breathing #Long

Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Inspirational #Men

If you still have to ask, shame on you
-- Louis Armstrong

#Shame #Shame On You #Stills

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

#Government #People #Way

White folks still in the lead.
-- Louis Armstrong

#White #Racism #Folks

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Dream #Kissing #Giving

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Kings #Looks #Parades

We don't play slow and we don't play fast, we play half fast
-- Louis Armstrong

#Guitar #Play #Half

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

#Music #Balance #Music Is

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

#Relationship #Simple #Shame

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Men #Feel Good #Good Man

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Beautiful #Heart #New Orleans

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

#Communication #Way

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

#Thinking #Words Of Wisdom #World

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

#Music #Half #Kind

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

#Music #Blow

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

#Music #Rocks #Rock And Roll

Red beans and ricely yours.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Vegetables #Red #Beans

Love is talkative passion.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Disappointment #Passion #Love Is

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!
-- Louis Armstrong

#Gratitude #Baby #Cheer

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #People #Firsts

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Baby #Giving #Secret

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

#Finding Yourself #Dropping #Halfway

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
-- Louis Armstrong

#Blessed #Dark #Thinking

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
-- Louis Armstrong

#Country #America #World

When you're dead, you're done.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Done #Jazz

Jazz is what I play for a living.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Play #Jazz

I've Got the World on a String,
-- Louis Armstrong

#World #Strings

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

#Mouths

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Music #Couple #Blow

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Cat #Trying #Firsts

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.
-- Louis Armstrong

#Giving #Green #Tunes

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

#Mean #Jazz

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

#Play #Jazz #Spades

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

#Able