Duke Ellington Quotes - Page 2

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

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

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

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

Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

People do not retire. They are retired by others.

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.

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.

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.