What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
DUKE ELLINGTONI 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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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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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.
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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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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
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Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
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There is no art without intention.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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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 supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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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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A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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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.
DUKE ELLINGTON






