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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

Duke Ellington

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
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Lazy Limitation Procrastination
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Communication Dance Important Myself People
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
Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Be Yourself Effort Hard Work Inspirational Self Love
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Goodness Taste True
I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Association Audience Listening Music Perspective Play
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Feeling Music Sound
There is no art without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Creation Creativity Intention One Liner
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
DUKE ELLINGTON

People Retirement
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

Live Music Myself Occupation Profession
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
I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Myself Time
Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Love
Simplicity is a most complex form.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Complex Form Simplicity
You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Bad Category Goodness Listening Stop

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

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