Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTONLove 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
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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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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
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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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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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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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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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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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The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.
DUKE ELLINGTON