Frases de Louis Armstrong

If you have to ask, you'll never know
resposta de Armstrong para alguém que lhe perguntou o que era jazz
citado em Strengthening counseling services for disadvantaged youth - Página 10, Ruth B. Love, ‎California. State Dept. of Education, ‎California. Bureau of Public Personnel Services - California State Dept. of Education, 1966, 145 páginas

Variante: What we play is life.
Fonte: Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings

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

Spoken intro to "What a Wonderful World" (1970 version)
Contexto: Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' 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 then this world would be a gasser. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying.
Contexto: 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? That aint so wonderful either." Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' 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 then this world would be a gasser. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying.

Ebony magazine, November 1964 http://books.google.com/books?id=G98DAAAAMBAJ&q=%22making+money+ain't+nothing+exciting+to+me%22+%22You+might+be+able+to+buy+a+little+better+booze+than+some+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%22&pg=PA138#v=onepage

As quoted in The New York Times (19 September 1957)]

Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954)

Armstrong's response to the question what jazz is, cited by Max Jones et. al.: "Salute to Satchmo", I.P.C. Specialist & Professional Press Ltd 1970, page 25
Often misquoted as "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know." Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (third edition)

Spoken intro to "What a Wonderful World" (1970 version)