Duke Ellington

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

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

There is no art without intention.

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!

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

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

Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.

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.

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

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

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.

There are 2 rules in life:_x000D_ Number 1- Never quit_x000D_ Number2- Never forget rule number 1.

Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.