I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTONIt is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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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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Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
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Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
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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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I’m sure critics have their purpose, 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 he did.
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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 is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
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On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.
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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON