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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.

Duke Ellington

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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Beginning Learning People Teaching Understand Word
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Feeling Music Sound
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
Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Ourselves Selfish Survive Virtue
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Cloud Pass Sky
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Kind Time Wasted Worry Yourself
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 ELLINGTON

Contribution Expression Music Myself Problem
A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Financial Loss Musical Profit
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
Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Love
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Music Sing Song Sweet
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Instinct Past Thinking
There is no art when one does something without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Intention
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
Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Herself Mistress Music Play
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Dangerous Oneself Yourself

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Duke Ellington Quotes