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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.

Duke Ellington

I don’t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Believe Black Kind White Yourself
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
DUKE ELLINGTON

Important Meaning Music Yourself
I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Myself Time
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Freedom Goodness Measurement
It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Act Commitment Murder Play Yourself
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Famous Fate Kindness Myself Young
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Evidence Love Myself Yourself
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Dangerous Oneself Yourself
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Bond Friendship Myself Right
Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Ourselves Selfish Survive Virtue
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Epitome Music Original Standard
New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Hell Music Time
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Cloud Pass Sky
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Money Myself Pay Togetherness
A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Doll Herself Pretty Woman
Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Missing Play

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Duke Ellington Quotes