I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
DUKE ELLINGTONThere are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of – or reincarnated from – royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being; blessedness comes from God.
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Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
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Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don’t dance, or who never did dance, don’t really understand the beat. I know musicians who don’t and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.
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Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
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Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
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The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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There is no art when one does something without intention.
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Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.
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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
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If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.
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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.
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By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
DUKE ELLINGTON