Duke Quotes

“It was on the 1958 tour that Ellington met Queen Elizabeth II in London. 'Struck speechless' by her grace, he responded with one of his most elegant gestures, writing with Strayhorn a piece called 'The Queen's Suite', then recording it and having a single copy of the album pressed for her alone.”
― Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington

“I want to tell you what I think the sex act is. I think it is like a lovely piece of music, conceived quietly in a background of mutual affection and understanding, made possible by instincts which lean toward each other as naturally as the sunflower slowly turning its lovely face to the sun. I think it is an aria of the sex symphony; an aria which begins beautifully certain of its rightness, moves with that certainty to a distinct tempo of feeling, sings itself happily, steadily, working, working, to a screaming, bursting climax of indescribable beauty and rapture and then throbs, spent and grateful in a re-dedication for the next movement of its perfection.”
― Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington

“....but John Voelker, who met him when 'Anatomy of a Murder' was being shot in Michigan, viewed him through the clear eyes of a novelist and a judge and was struck by what he saw: 'I gradually felt drawn to him, not because I savor disillusion, but rather because I sensed that, in his case at least, '[his disillusion] masked great sensitivity and pride and even, however finely veiled, a vein of melancholy and loneliness.”
― Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington