You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTONProblems are chances for us to do our best.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
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My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?
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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
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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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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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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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Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.
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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
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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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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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Everybody in Canada seemed to listen to what they enjoyed, and nobody could tell them what to like, or what was the popular, or what was the In thing. Even today, it is very hard to brainwash a Canadian.
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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
DUKE ELLINGTON






