Duke Ellington

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

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

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

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

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

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

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.

You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it.

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

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

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.

Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is.

A problem is a chance for your to do your best.

A man is a god in ruins.

A goal is a dream with a finish line.

Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.

San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world - one of the really urbane communities in the United States - one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world.

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

A problem is your chance to do your best.

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

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.

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.

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

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

People do not retire. They are retired by others.

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 its successful if it doesnt it has failed.