Quincy Jones Quotes

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.

Michael (Jackson) was so shy, he'd sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat with my hands over my eyes-and the lights off.

Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.

My son is a hip-hop producer.

My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade.

I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it.

I was married for 36 years but now I'm free.

The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.

I'm just a musician and a record producer.

I'm a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from.

Whenever a woman would come too close, I would cut her off. Part of that was vindictive - but that was totally subconscious.

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.

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

I got to trumpet, finally. That's why I love to write for brass, and [Count] Basie and [Frank] Sinatra and all that stuff, 'cause that's just like part of my DNA.

If I don't have a mother, I'll let music be my mother.

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.

A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that's the bottom line.

It was messed up, because in 1947 my family moved to Seattle and I had to get up at 5:00 o'clock in the morning to catch the ferry back to Bremerton every morning because I was Boys Club president.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.

I was the most subtle person in the world.

I never felt like I had a mother.

I look back and say, "This must have been somebody else." I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.

They say a blind hog will find the acorn one day.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

Prince.. a true artist in every sense of the world.Gone way too soon.

The relationship with a producer and an artist is really special. It's got to be love and respect, amazing mutual respect for each other, because that's what makes a good record.

I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day.

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.'

I travel like a maniac. I travel more than anyone I know. I love learning the languages.

Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go.

I think the attraction of 'American Idol' is about the basic human nature attitude that is, 'We can put you up there. But we can take you down.'

The only justification for looking down on anyone, is that you're going to stop and pick them up.