Lionel Hampton Quotations

I always figured I'd still be playing at this age.

Music was our wife and we loved her. We stayed with her, clothed her and put diamond rings on her hands.

It's always Jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of clothes she's the same old broad.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid.

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

I'm motivated. The spirit hits me and I just keep going and don't stop. The more I play, the more I can invent, the more ideas come to me.

All art is communication of the artists' ideas, sounds, thoughts; without that no one will support the artist.

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.