Duke Ellington Quotes

How can anyone expect to be understood unless he presents his thoughts with complete honesty? This situation is unfair because it asks too much of the world. In effect, we say, ' I don't dare show you what I am because I don't trust you for a minute but please love me anyway because I so need you to. And, of course, if you don't love me anyway, you're a dirty dog, just as I suspected, so I was right in the first place.' Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.

Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.

Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.

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.

A goal is a dream with a finish line.

There is no art when one does something without intention.

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

I don’t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again.

My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?

I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.

Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.

The artist must say it without saying it.

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

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

The problem of expressing the contributions that Benny Carter has made to popular music is so tremendous it completely fazes me, so extraordinary a musician is he.

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.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

It's like an act of murder - you play with intent to commit something.

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.

Every man prays in his own language.

There is no art without intention.

Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.

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

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.

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.

Simplicity is a most complex form

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.

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

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 you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!

I began by tinkering around with some old tunes I knew. Then, just to try something different, I set to putting some music to the rhythm that I used in jerking ice-cream sodas at the Poodle Dog. I fooled around with the tune more and more until at last, lo and behold, I had completed my first piece of finished music.

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

Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom... In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.

The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse.

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

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.

Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don't dance, or who never did dance, don't really understand the beat... I know musicians who don't and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.

Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.

Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.

I don't need time, I need a deadline.

Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

Problems are chances for us to do our best.

Hurry, get on board, it's comin', listen to those rails a-thrumming all aboard. Get on the "A" train, soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem.

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!

Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.