A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
DUKE ELLINGTONWithout a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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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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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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The artist must say it without saying it.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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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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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 today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
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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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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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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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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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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






