Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTONI don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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There is no art without intention.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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Of the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.
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There is no art when one does something without intention.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
DUKE ELLINGTON






