I don’t deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn’t deserve that, either. So I’ll keep it.
QUINCY JONESGreatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.
More Quincy Jones Quotes
-
-
What happens when you get a big break and you haven’t prepared yourself? That becomes the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. I see it happen all the time.
QUINCY JONES -
When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out.
QUINCY JONES -
Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.
QUINCY JONES -
I was the most subtle person in the world.
QUINCY JONES -
Excellence isn’t an act, it’s a habit.
QUINCY JONES -
Billy Strayhorn wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy to me is the boss of the arrangers.
QUINCY JONES -
I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you’re supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.
QUINCY JONES -
If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.
QUINCY JONES -
I look back and say, “This must have been somebody else.” I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.
QUINCY JONES -
I’m never in my life going to do a record that’s a tribute to myself. I don’t need it.
QUINCY JONES -
My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children’s books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.
QUINCY JONES -
It’s amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don’t have anything else to do.
QUINCY JONES -
We stole a box of honey jars one time and went out in the woods and took care of the whole box. I don’t think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again.
QUINCY JONES -
If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You’re dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.
QUINCY JONES -
A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that’s the bottom line.
QUINCY JONES -
A lot of the guys were like that – Oscar Pettiford – they just took me under their wing, and that’s why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.
QUINCY JONES -
They say a blind hog will find the acorn one day.
QUINCY JONES -
I’m a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.
QUINCY JONES -
If I don’t have a mother, I’ll let music be my mother.
QUINCY JONES -
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
QUINCY JONES -
The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.
QUINCY JONES -
I’m a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from.
QUINCY JONES -
You cannot get an A if you’re afraid of getting an F.
QUINCY JONES -
Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. ‘Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.’
QUINCY JONES -
Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.
QUINCY JONES -
The only music I don’t like is bad music.
QUINCY JONES