Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
DUKE ELLINGTONThe wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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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!
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Critics have their purposes, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
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It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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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.
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There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
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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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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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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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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, 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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The artist must say it without saying it.
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I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
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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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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
DUKE ELLINGTON






