Duke Ellington

A goal is a dream with a finish line.

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

Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.

Roaming through the jungle of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’, searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

The best way is always the simplest. The attics of the world are cluttered up with complicated failures.

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

We learn something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong.

These are our neighbours, our co-workers, friends’ children… the problem is closer than you think, but so is the solution.

I appreciate a lot in this life; the things you cannot buy. Life is only once. I am happy being here and all the things that are a risk I normally avoid.

If you don’t have a plan, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years, and before you know it you’re looking back saying, I should’ve had a plan.

Whatever it is, people who have more spare time than people ever had before get the sense of whirlwind pressure,and repeat the common criticism that ‘we are going too fast.’ Yet the people live longer than ever before, live with less effort, live on a higher plane. Is it possible that this common saying about our rapid pace is just another thoughtless mob suggestion?

Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!

You can do anything, but not everything.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

And you know, there’s less charm in life when you think about death–but it’s more peaceful.

The ‘B’ stands for whatever, depending on the day…beautiful or bully

If there’s only one answer, then this must not be a very interesting topic.

Four women have helped me: mother, sister, mother-in-law and wife.