Quincy Jones Quotes
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I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
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It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.
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Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it's rough out there. But the bottom line is you've got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I'm totally addicted to traveling.
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I'd been in love before - I was always in love.
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Everybody has their idiosyncrasies.
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I was married for 36 years but now I'm free.
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Sidney Poitier and Sidney Lumet were instrumental in helping me get started as the first black composer to get name credit for movie scores.
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I never cared about money or fame, and I don't care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows.
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I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.
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I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day.
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China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right.
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When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
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I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
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I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens.
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Cherish your mistakes, and you won't keep making them over and over again. It's the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, and they'll put some wealth in you.
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I live on the Internet.
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Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet. I worked with him until he passed away in '98. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don't need a passport. I just flash my ring.
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I chose the trombone because the trombone players in the marching band got to be up front with the majorettes (because of the slides) and I loved that!
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I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.
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I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television.
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Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away.
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Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.
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My brother died of cancer two years ago (1998), renal cell carcinoma. He was my only real brother and I didn't know what to do. I'd never been so desperate in my life.
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I don't deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn't deserve that, either. So I'll keep it.