Song Quotes by Artie Shaw

I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate…

— Artie Shaw

It ["Begin the Beguine"] became such a hit that it superseded anything that any band had ever had. It was the first time that…

— Artie Shaw

An audience is in many respects no more than a mob under loose control.

— Artie Shaw

Dance music-as I keep saying, you can dance to a windshield wiper... a windshield wiper that's fairly steady gives you a beat and all…

— Artie Shaw

I'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is…

— Artie Shaw

Shoot for the moon - if you miss you'll end up in the stars.

— Artie Shaw

There's such a cynicism about the phrase 'I laughed all the way to the bank.' It's as though money is what you're doing, rather…

— Artie Shaw

“Presumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.”

— Artie Shaw

People ask what those women saw in me. Let's face it, I wasn't a bad-looking stud. But that's not it. It's the music; it's…

— Artie Shaw

When I first met Benny Goodman he wouldn't talk about anything but clarinets, mouthpieces, reeds, etc. When I tried to change the subject, he…

— Artie Shaw

Any more would have been less.

— Artie Shaw

If I could have done anything more, it would have been less

— Artie Shaw

The bandleader is a musician trying to sell a mass commodity; and in order to do so successfully he must accommodate himself to mass…

— Artie Shaw

You have no idea of the people I didn't marry.

— Artie Shaw

Listening to Benny [Goodman] talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.

— Artie Shaw