Duke Ellington

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

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

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

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

There is no art without intention.

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

To be a leader, you must stand for something, or you will fall for anything.

Greatest thing we can produce is character. Everything else can be taken from us, but not our character.

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

And of all the things I look forward to in life, falling in love with you is at the top of the list.

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.

Never turn your back on enthusiasm.

If only I had known then the speed with which she could die, maybe I wouldn’t have become the hemlock.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

I’m the one that has to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.

If you really understand Zen, you can use any book, even the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.

Life is trying things to see if they work.

I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.

Stand up and walk out of your history.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.