Ahmet Ertegun Quotes
I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
Quotes to Explore
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It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.
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I actually spend very little time listening to any new music.
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I really believed that my songs were good enough for the whole world to listen to. I had fans from America or the U.K. who would be like, 'Oh my God, I love your music'.
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If there's anything that would unite the world, it would be music.
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I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.
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When you start putting too much thought into it, the music starts getting too revealing. You don't need to know all my inner thoughts.
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The perfect day for me is waking up and having a cup of tea with my kids before I drive them to school; Then, I go into the studio and try and write some music for three or four hours and give up about noon.
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Sports without music is just a game. Music makes it entertaining.
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I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.
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I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.
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I've always been singing all my life, but I started playing guitar when I was 19, and that was my final year in university, in law school. I think that happened when I started making a lot of friends who were in the independent music scene.
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Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.
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My dad is a football guy, not a music guy. He didn't totally understand when I decided to be a musician.
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No one told me I had to make something that would sell, but I personally want everyone to like my music.
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Music has become so ever-present in our lives. You can't walk through a shopping mall or go into a restaurant without what we used to call Muzak.
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Uncritical American boosterism - automatic endorsement of every government action - is myopic and self-defeating.
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I think The Doors are one of the classic groups, and I think we're all tempted to feel like the time in which we grew up was somehow special, but I really do believe that there were two golden eras in music: The Forties and Fifties of big band, jazz and swing, and the Sixties and Seventies of rock. To me, they're really unparalleled.
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Whenever you write music, you want it to touch people on a certain level. I mean, I've been reading tweets about 'Troublemaker' and people saying 'OMG, I can so relate to this - this is a guy that I fancy, or a girl that I fancy; it's exactly like this person.'
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A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.
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Great men never make bad use of their superiority. They see it and feel it and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.
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And also, I know I have this responsibility or mission to show people, to encourage them to live their dream, too.
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I just love photographing. I don't do it for anyone else.
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The moments that I feel the most imbued with a sense of awe are always the moments when I am outdoors. I can't help but feel a certain sense of wonder - I become almost filled with it.
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I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
