Duke Ellington Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!

  Duke Ellington

  Inspirational, Needs, Jazz

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Survival, Selfishness, Essentials

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  12 Copy quote

• The artist must say it without saying it.

  Duke Ellington

  Artist

  15 Copy quote

• The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

  Duke Ellington

  Inspiring, Music, Wise

  22 Copy quote

• Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Failure, Adversity

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  89 Copy quote
• 

  Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.

  Duke Ellington

  Thoughtful, Past, Matter

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.326, Oxford Paperbacks

  36 Copy quote

• What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Mean, Doe

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Love Is, Proof

  47 Copy quote

• I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Art, Opportunity

  "The Best of the Music Makers". Book by George Thomas Simon, 1979.

  98 Copy quote

• 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.

  Duke Ellington

  Mother, Blessed, Taken

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  66 Copy quote

• 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!

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Together, Band

  74 Copy quote

• Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.

  Duke Ellington

  Art, Want, Jazz

  24 Copy quote

• 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

  Funny, Music, Girl

  57 Copy quote

• Everybody in Canada seemed to listen to what they enjoyed, and nobody could tell them what to like, or what was the popular, or what was the In thing. Even today, it is very hard to brainwash a Canadian.

  Duke Ellington

  Canada, Today, Brainwash

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  68 Copy quote

• Roaming through the jungle of "Ohs" and "Ahs", searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Children, Mind

  "Music Is My Mistress". Book by Duke Ellington, 1973.

  37 Copy quote

• Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.

  Duke Ellington

  Wings, Waiting, Sound

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  11 Copy quote

• By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Daughter, Mother

  "At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene". Book by Nat Hentoff, 2010.

  39 Copy quote

• Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.

  Duke Ellington

  Children, Honesty, Miracle

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.371, Oxford Paperbacks

  10 Copy quote

• There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Art, Gone

  40 Copy quote

• People do not retire. They are retired by others.

  Duke Ellington

  People, Age, Aging

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  19 Copy quote

• New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky.

  Duke Ellington

  Hell, Stravinsky, New Music

  1970 Quoted in D Jewell Duke (1977).

  23 Copy quote

• There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed.

  Duke Ellington

  Successful, Two, Sound

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.326, Oxford Paperbacks

  11 Copy quote

• A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.

  Duke Ellington

  Beauty, Dolls, Satin

  14 Copy quote

• Critics have their purposes, 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 they did.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Thinking, Should Have

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.334, Oxford Paperbacks

  19 Copy quote

• If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original. ... I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. ... I don't need time, I need a deadline. ...There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. ... Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.

  Duke Ellington

  Play, Two, Mistress

  30 Copy quote

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