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I improvised my life along the way - I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.

Quincy Jones

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Quincy Jones
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: March 14
Actor
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Producer
Humanitarian
Instrumentalist
Jazz Musician
Jazz Trumpeter
Music Arranger
Chicago
Illinois
Q
Quincy
Quincy Delight Jones Jr.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr
Quincy Jones Jr.
Better
Something
Would
Improvised
Life
Moved
Step
Along
Knew
Happen

More quotes by Quincy Jones

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The process is the most beautiful part.
Quincy Jones
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We got into all the trouble you could ever imagine. We figured that if the Jones boys and all the gangsters ran Chicago, we had our own territory now. All the stores, all the crime, we were in charge of everything, my stepbrother and my brother.
Quincy Jones
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There's power in the collective. If you don't believe me, just watch a symphony orchestra with a conductor and 120 people who are thinking about exactly the same thing at the same moment - no babies, no stock markets, no mortgages. Just 32nd notes.
Quincy Jones
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Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.
Quincy Jones
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Excellence isn't an act, it's a habit
Quincy Jones
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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.
Quincy Jones
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A lot of the guys were like that - Oscar Pettiford - they just took me under their wing, and that's why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.
Quincy Jones
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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.
Quincy Jones
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You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F.
Quincy Jones
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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.
Quincy Jones
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The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious.
Quincy Jones
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Im probably the only one in the world you can name thats worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. Fly Me to the Moon was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. Im the only one.
Quincy Jones
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To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft.
Quincy Jones
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Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.
Quincy Jones
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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.
Quincy Jones
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Let's not get too full of ourselves. Let's leave space for God to come into the room.
Quincy Jones
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I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it.
Quincy Jones
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Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important.
Quincy Jones
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I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, Ain't that the truth.
Quincy Jones
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Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That's the soul of a country.
Quincy Jones