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.

— Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington Quotes

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?

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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.

— Duke Ellington

A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.

— Duke Ellington

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

— Duke Ellington

Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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.

— Duke Ellington

Of the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

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.

— Duke Ellington

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.

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King’s son.

— Duke Ellington

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

— Duke Ellington

Jazz is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.

— Duke Ellington
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