Duke Ellington

It’s all music.

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

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

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.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.

If I’d known I’d live to be a 100 I’d have taken much better care of myself.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

To resent efficiency is a mark of inefficiency.

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Much depends on people knowing what opportunity means; it doesn’t mean a silver platter, it oftener means a spade. Self-help means something sterner than ‘help yourself’–reach over and take it.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

We are proud to have a platform through the Dr Phil show and the Dr. Phil Foundation to offer children the voice they need to meet their goals in having a better life.

Our life before moving to Washington was filled with simple joys. Saturdays at soccer games, Sundays at Grandma’s house. And a date night for Barack and me was either dinner or a movie, because as an exhausted mom, I couldn’t stay awake for both. He was still the guy who’d picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger-side door.

If you foul up, tell the President and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.

We may appear to be mean, but we’re really only frightened.

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

Not everything I write will be a masterpiece; I know that. It is a process selecting words to convey feelings never meant to be spoken. So maybe I’ve been searching for what’s already been said and this is the finest way I can say it. I love you, in everything I am, I love you.