Explore Quotes by Dave Brubeck

Every individual should be expressing themselves, whether a politician or a minister or a policeman.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies

One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born — or before you’re born — and it’s the last thing you hear.

I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

I never wanted this kind of life that Im still living.

Your mother’s heartbeat is the first sound you ever hear and your own heartbeat is the last.

I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

Kinship doesn't come from skin color. It's in your soul and your mind.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

Probably the most profound thing in the Bible is 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.' This is what, to me, is the essence of Christianity.

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.

My dad was the manager at the 45,000-acre ranch, but he owned his own 1,200-acre ranch, and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school, from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied, and he kept track of them for years for me. And that was my herd.

I got a poster from Columbia Records, and there's Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Ellington, Count Basie - everybody in that poster has died, I'm the only one left. And great players like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, it's hard to believe they're gone because we were all so close. But I believe in the future and the tradition will go on.

Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music!

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

My own Brubeck Institute in California is turning out fantastic young jazz players, and I know great things will happen.

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

If I told you all the people that have secretly told me I've influenced them, you'd never believe it, and you'll never see it in print, either.

I wanted to be like my father, who was a cattle man and a rodeo roper. And that was - he was my hero, and I wanted to be more like him.

I had the first integrated Army band in World War II.