The problem of expressing the contributions that Benny Carter has made to popular music is so tremendous it completely fazes me, so extraordinary a musician is he.
DUKE ELLINGTONI 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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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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Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.
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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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If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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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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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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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
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Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
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New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillacs, and beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTON






