Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
DUKE ELLINGTONSelfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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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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There are two kinds of worries – those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
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The artist must say it without saying it.
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By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
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There is no art without intention.
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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.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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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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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.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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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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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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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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My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of – or reincarnated from – royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being; blessedness comes from God.
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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
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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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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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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
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Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
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There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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