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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
Myself
Life
Never
Related Quotes:
" I'm not a psychiatrist. "
Quincy Jones
Psychiatrist
" If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle. "
Quincy Jones
Experience
You
World
" You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F. "
Quincy Jones
Afraid
Cannot
Get
" I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything. "
Quincy Jones
Curious
Reading
Cats
" 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. "
Quincy Jones
Music
You
Play
" I lost my mother when I was 7 and they put her in a mental hospital. My brother and I watched her being taken away in a strait jacket. That's something you never forget. And my stepmother was like in the movie 'Precious.' I couldn't handle it. So I said to myself, 'I don't have a mother. I don't need one. I'm going to let music be my mother.' "
Quincy Jones
Brother
Music
Mother
" I didn't understand key signatures or anything, you know. I'd say silly things at the top of a trumpet part like, 'Note, when you play B naturals, make the B naturals a half step lower because they sound funny if they're B naturals.' And some guy said: 'Idiot, just put a flat on the third line and it's a key signature, you know?' "
Quincy Jones
Step
You
Play
" We spent most of our life almost like street rats just running around the street until we were ten years old. "
Quincy Jones
Like
Old
Years
" Sidney Poitier and Sidney Lumet were instrumental in helping me get started as the first black composer to get name credit for movie scores. "
Quincy Jones
Name
Me
Started
" When I was 14, I was a passenger in a terrible accident. "
Quincy Jones
Passenger
Terrible
Accident
" Everybody has their idiosyncrasies. "
Quincy Jones
Everybody
Idiosyncrasies
" I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.' "
Quincy Jones
Son
Work
Tools
" I'm a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap. "
Quincy Jones
Supporter
Rap
Hip-Hop
" I've never been bored in my life, man. I've never been bored or lonely. Are you kidding? No way! I'm an orchestrator, a musician, a producer. I love everything. I've studied languages from Farsi to Greek to French, Swedish, Russian... How can you get bored? "
Quincy Jones
My Life
Life
Man
" My grandmother had this high-tech security system - a rusty nail she used to lock the door. "
Quincy Jones
She
Security
Lock
" 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. "
Quincy Jones
Away
Writing
Seattle
" 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. "
Quincy Jones
Ring
Now
Need
" I don't ever want to grow up. That's boring. "
Quincy Jones
Ever
Up
Want
" I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs. "
Quincy Jones
Car
World
Special
" I don't remember feeling love. "
Quincy Jones
Feeling
Remember
Love
" I've met every freak in the business. "
Quincy Jones
Business
Met
Freak
" I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music - gospel, blues, jazz and R&B - is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you. "
Quincy Jones
Heart
Music
Soul
" I never felt like I had a mother. "
Quincy Jones
Like
Mother
Felt
" The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious. "
Quincy Jones
Entertainment
Business
Black
" I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America. "
Quincy Jones
Black
Time
Music
" My father was a carpenter, a very good carpenter. He also worked for the Jones boys. They were not family members, we weren't related at all. They started the policy racket in Chicago, and they had the five and dime store. "
Quincy Jones
Policy
Chicago
Family
" Few rappers realize the genre sprang from West African griots through Delta slave songs to jazz poetry and the comedic trash talk of 'the dozens.' "
Quincy Jones
Realize
Trash
Talk
" I like all music. The only music I don't like is bad music. "
Quincy Jones
Like
Bad
Music
" 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
God
World
Think
" 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. "
Quincy Jones
You
Cherish
Mistakes